Real estate advertising in public space
ExhibitionJoint opening programme on 21st September 2022
5 p.m. Joint opening at the Minoritenzentrum Graz
6.30 p.m. Graz Museum
7.15 p.m. Designforum Steiermark/FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences as well as 100 Exciting Posters
8 p.m. HDA & Kunsthaus Graz
Exhibition 22nd September – 30th October 2022
Symposium 7th October, 3 p.m.
Lecture evening 19th October 2022, 7 p.m.
Judith Eiblmayr “Bad Gastein 1830 – zwischen Wasserfall und Spekulation”
An publication is available for the exhibition.
The visual representation of buildings and urban spaces is one of the most important forms of communication in contemporary architecture. In the urban space these visualisations are often used for advertising purposes, decorating scaffolding and construction site fences. The exhibition Veil and Promise investigates the phenomenon of real estate advertising in the public space. Images by photographer Hans Georg Esch of posters from all over the world are juxtaposed with texts by Reinier de Graaf, AMO/OMA, visual analysis by graphic designer Rosa Nussbaum as well as an installation by artist Sven Borger.
The visual representation of buildings and urban spaces is one of the most important forms of communication in (contemporary) architecture. The images show the buildings in their urban context or in the landscape, the internal spaces, surface finishes and furnishings.
In the urban space these visualisations are often used for advertising purposes by the real estate sector, mainly for housing and office buildings. They decorate construction site fences and billboards, are presented as large-scale advertisements at crossings and on motorways. The visualisations promise the “most attractive apartment” or the “ideal urban district”. They portray happy people, lots of green and trees, fountains, children playing and elderly people relaxing.
The exhibition Veil and Promise focusses on the phenomenon of real estate advertising in urban space. Here, evocative names and seductive visualisations on the advertising billboards present the emerging construction projects as the private living space of our dreams. This contrasts sharply with the situation of housing shortage combined with rising rent and real estate prices currently so widely discussed. Terms such as "the sell-out of cities" and “concrete gold” demonstrate how, through the desire for the best return on investment, new build projects emerging around the world are increasingly contributing to the “inhospitability of cities”, which Alexander Mitscherlich described as early as 1965 in his book of the same name.
The installation shows work by architecture photographer Hans-Georg Esch, who documented real estate advertisements on his travels around the world. The images are juxtaposed with text passages from the 2015 article in the Architectural Review by Reinier de Graaf in which he wrote ‘Architecture is now a tool of capital, complicit in a purpose antithetical to its social mission’. Rosa Nussbaum’s visual analyses of the posters provide an insight into the real estate industry’s stylistic devices for producing ideal illusions.
Intervention(s) in the urban space
In addition to the exhibition at the HDA, an artistic intervention by Sven Borger will be realised at a construction site in Graz. The work will remain in the urban space after the exhibition at the HDA has come to an end, staying for the duration of the building site.
Curated by the HDA – House of Architecture
With works by HG Esch, Reinier de Graaf, Rosa Nussbaum, Sven Borger
An exhibition in the framework of the joint project Art of Seduction to mark 100 years of graphic design by Kunsthaus Graz, Graz Museum, cultural centre KULTUM – Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten, HDA – House of Architecture, the Institute of Design and Communication at FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, WKO Steiermark – Advertising and Market Communication Section of the Styrian Economic Chambers, and Ankünder. Initiated by Siegfried Gruber, coordinated by Creative Industries Styria.
OPENING
Exhibition opening with live performance
For the exhibition opening, the HDA invites to a performance by the Vienna-based artist Sven Borger from Krefeld who will inflate the “real estate bubble” – the object “NEOLOGISM UnUpsub*Arc“ – to its full size. The performance will take place in the exhibition space starting at 8 p.m. Filling the space, the object will continue to form the centre of the installation until the end of the exhibition.
Date: September 21st 2022, 8 p.m.
Venue: HDA – House of Architecture, Mariahilferstraße 2, 8020 Graz
ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME
Joint Symposium "Art of Seduction"
Date: 7th October 2022, 3 p.m.
Venue: Kunsthaus Graz, Space 04, Lendkai 1, 8020 Graz
Participating cultural institutions are together organising a symposium in the framework of the overall project Art of Seduction. This event will discuss the complex relationship between advertising and architecture as well as the question of the connection between art and the economy in the context of advertising posters.
Talk by Judith Eiblmayr “Bad Gastein 1830 – zwischen Wasserfall und Spekulation”
Date: October 19th 2022, 7 p.m.
Venue: HDA – House of Architecture, Mariahilferstraße 2, 8020 Graz
Viennese architect and architecture critic Judith Eiblmayer will present her recently published book Bad Gastein. Ab/An/Aufgebaut in the HDA on 19th October at 7 p.m., giving a review of the eventful history of Bad Gastein, a booming tourist resort which has been a playground for investors since 1830.
FREE GUIDED TOURS
Free guided tours of the exhibition are offered each weekend, at 3 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. on Sundays. Registration is not required.
ARTISTS
Hans Georg Esch was born in Neuwied, Germany, in 1964 and is one of the most important interpreters of the latest architecture and avant-garde design worldwide. He has developed a number of artistic concepts resulting in large series of images and books like Megacities, City and Structure or Cities Unknown. He stages panoramas of cities and landscapes as wall-sized images or as walk-in rotundas set up in public places. In addition to photography, Esch is now increasingly devoting himself to film; together with filmmaker Oliver Schwabe, among others, he has already realised numerous films of architecture around the world, which he produces primarily for architecture practices. His works have been shown in exhibitions such as the Architecture Biennale in Venice, at the National Museum of China, at the Liechtenstein Art Museum, as part of the Hamburg Summer of Architecture and at film festivals such as the Master of Art Film Festival in Sofia. HG Esch lives and works in Hennef / Stadt Blankenberg.
Reinier de Graaf has been a partner at OMA since 1996. He is responsible for building and masterplanning projects in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. In 2002, he co-founded AMO, the think tank of OMA, and produced The Image of Europe, an exhibition illustrating the history of the European Union. As head of AMO, he has a focus on sustainability and energy planning. This includes projects such as Zeekracht: A Strategy for Masterplanning the North Sea, the publication Roadmap: A Practical Guide to a Prosperous, Low-Carbon Europe in collaboration with the European Climate Foundation, and The Energy Report, a global plan for 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050, together with WWF. He curated the exhibitions On Hold at the British School in Rome (2011) and Public Works: Architecture by Civil Servants (Venice Biennale, 2012; Berlin, 2013) and he is the author of Four Walls and a Roof, The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession and the novel The Masterplan.
Rosa Nussbaum is the founder of the London-based graphic design practice Studio Christopher Victor. With particular experience in book design and production. Clients include the Architecture Foundation, Circa Press, Drawing Matter, Laurence King Publishing, Lund Humphries, The MIT Press, Open City, Oslo Architecture Triennale, Quart Verlag and Thames & Hudson.
Sven Borger, born in Krefeld, is a freelance artist living in Vienna. After graduating from high school, he served in the German Navy for four years, training as a navigation officer and being assigned to frigates. This was followed by a change of direction when he studied architecture and interior architecture at the Peter Behrens School of Arts in Düsseldorf. The idea of developing real urban interiors – an architecture made up of more than just buildings – was the starting point for his studies of spatial strategies at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art. He was artist-in-residence with a scholarship in Krems/Lower Austria and scholarship holder at the Bauhaus Dessau as well as tutor for spatial strategies at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art.
Das Haus der Architektur lädt im Rahmen der Ausstellung Verhüllung und Verheißung herzlich zu einem Richtfest mit dem Künstler Sven Borger ein. Bei seiner Performance enthüllt Sven Borger ein unterweltigendes Baustellenplakat an einer Baustelle im Grazer Stadtzentrum (Lendkai 95).
read more ...
Graphic design and the media associated with and influenced by it, such as the poster, have changed and shaped the communication landscape over the last 100 years. Parallel to this, different movements of visual art and graphic design have emerged, a development still ongoing today. This broad spectrum of "graphic design" – a term that first appeared in 1922 – is the focus of 6 exhibitions involving 8 institutions from the fields of culture, science and business.
read more ...
