11 Nov. – 17 Dec., 2016
EPEKA Gallery, Maribor

EPEKA Gallery, is organising the opening of a photographic exhibition by the Graz-based artist Michael Petrowitsch, entitled Museum Resolutions, on Friday, 11 November 2016 at 7 pm. The exhibition will be on view until 17 December 2016.

Museum resolution:

According to Boris Groys, photography dissolved the museum order, which was established on the fictionality of subjective, individual creativity. It has rightly destroyed it through its reproductive practice, because the museum order is illusory.

Michael Petrowitsch is currently engaged in developing the temporal sequence and its documentation, in painting and presenting works in public spaces. “Seeing” and “Knowing” are subordinated to the absolute and give the photographic gaze a special role. Do they become part of a chronological process that connects over the role of cognition? For the beautiful exhibition space in Maribor, the artist asks this question again. With the help of his works, he tries to disrupt the circumstances and to question the spectator’s customs once again.

Michael Petrowitsch (1968) grew up in South Styria, attended school in Graz, studied German Philology and Slovene Studies at the University of Graz and graduated in 1996 with a Master of Science. He has been active in the field of human rights as a civil society activist, and since 1993 has been the manager of the Artikel VII Cultural Association (Artikel-VIIKulturvereins) for Slovenes in Styria.

As the manager and curator of the Pavlov House, he was responsible for the operation and exhibition programme of the bilingual cultural centre in Potrna pri Radgona. He directed the extension and renovation of the Museum of the History and Modernity of the Slovene Minority in Styria, located in the eastern wing of the building, and edited numerous publications of the Pavlova House. From 2003 to 2009 he was President of Kultur Steiermark. Since September 2009, he has been Cultural Adviser to the Regional MP Bettina Vollath (SPÖ).

In the management of the Universalmuseum Joanneum, Petrowitsch has organised and designed several exhibitions and projects in the field of migration and integration. He curated the project “Borderline” in the framework of Maribor 2012 – European Capital of Culture.

The cultural initiative Kürbis in Wiese exhibited Michael Petrowitsch’s photographic works for a year. In March 2014, the Steirische Kulturinitiative exhibited Michael Petrowitsch’s photographic series at the Orpheum in Graz. This was followed by an exhibition in the Grottenhof Cultural Park in May 2014. As part of the Styrian Autumn Festival, he curated the exhibition Bratstvo i Jedinstvo – In the Sign of Deregulation (Graz House of Architecture).

The exhibition Museum Resolutions was supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Youth Office and Erasmus+.

GALLERY