The Museum of Contemporary Art announces the exhibition The Arts of Resistance (TAoR) as part of the international project of the same name. The exhibition will open on May 8 and run until June 21, 2025, presenting the results of months of research and co-creative processes exploring the connections between historical, cultural, social, political, and physical ecologies of resistance against fascism.
The Arts of Resistance project, initiated by artists Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond from the HASENHERZ association, brings together young artists, researchers, and experts to explore historical contexts of resistance through a co-creative approach and reinterpret them through contemporary art. Drawing from Umberto Eco’s text We Are European (2019), the project examines Europe as an experiment in peace, identity, and resistance against fascism—both in the past and today.
The exhibition will showcase artistic works created as a result of the project, including the outcomes of international workshops and research meetings held at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, an artistic intervention with public schools in Braunschweig, as well as young artists’ reflections on resistance through artistic practice. The exhibition’s goal is to encourage critical thinking and dialogue about historical and contemporary forms of resistance against fascism and open space for new interpretations through art.
Newly created works will be presented in correlation with pieces from the MSU collection that are related to themes of resistance and antifascism, as part of the exhibition cycle "Okidači" (Triggers), thus creating new relationships and interpretations of the exhibited artworks and the concepts they address.
At the intersection of international youth work, contemporary artistic research, and political education, the TAoR project also aims to examine artistic works and cultural products based on local examples as possible forms of resistance. To build a pan-European understanding of fascism and artistic-based resistance, and with the support of internationally recognized artists, young participants have explored and co-created artworks as their expression of resistance against fascism.
Artists: selma banich, Klub mladih MSU / MSU Youth Club (Nina Ćorić, Celina Damjanović, Emma Matijević, Mirta Mesić, Antonija Mužar, Bohdan Myshkov, Stella Poljak, Mia Rogić, Dorian Štih), Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond, Theresia Heichinger, Aneta Luberda, Elena Rabinka, Lena Scharnreitner, Carola von Herder, Miriam Weichmann, Martin Krenn, Maria Ammann, Henadzi Arkhipau, Paul-Can Atlama, Dana Crasser, Natascha Faber, Xiaoming Huang, Fiona Jassmann, Nelly Khabipova, Laetitia Lentz, Hye-Hyun Kim, Merve Gisou Rosenthal, Daphne Schüttkemper
Curators: Klub mladih MSU / MSU Youth Club, Ana Škegro
TAoR Project Leader:
·Association HASENHERZ or the Pleasures of the Moving Image and Word, Vienna
TAoR Project Partners:
· University of Applied Arts Vienna
· Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb
· Braunschweig University of Art
Project Website: https://culture-of-resistance.eu/
Funded by the Creative Europe Program | Culture and Creativity – European Union.
The project is supported by the City of Zagreb, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Federal Ministry Republic of Austria, Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport and the Austrian Cultural Forum.
