Ein exemplarisches österreichisches Künstlerleben oder: "Oy Palme ey!"

Chapter 1 - Tossing Records at Evil - At the start of the new millennium, I am sitting in my favorite club, Rhiz, famed as one of the testing-grounds for experimental electronic music in the 1990s. On stage: a giant angularly-formed skull made of Styrofoam hangs from above, its horns point evilly upward. At the front of the stage: a white guy dressed in a tunic-like garment and a black plastic something-or-other on his head. Speaking in broken English, he tells us that he comes from a tribe in Ethiopia, where for centuries it has been the practice once a year to drive evil away by throwing vinyl records at it. “Evil” is represented here by the previously noted Styrofoam skull. At once, 100 vinyl singles are distributed, and the public starts with great enthusiasm to fling them at Evil. The records go whizzing through the air, missing the skull or sticking into it, slicing off its left horn. At the end the stage is littered with record shards, Evil is defeated, and I find a cracked original pressing of a Beatles single on the floor; I begin to gently weep. Chapter 2 - The Broadcast with the Zombie Mouse - Back again in Rhiz: a man is seated on stage wearing a strange mask—evidently a “zombie mouse,” reading in ungrammatical German the story of Palm Sunday, in which Jesus rides a donkey into a city but, the donkey is really a space alien come to protect Jesus. “Hee Palm haw!” is the recurring sentence. Chapter 3 - The Great Hedgehog Show - In an obscure talk-show, guests are interviewed by a hedgehog hand-puppet with a high squeaky voice. The guests include the Romanian artist Casa Gontz, the electronic experimental band “Das Fax Mattinger” and rhiz manager Herbie Molin. The interviewees clearly have no idea how to respond to the hedgehog’s high-pitched questions; but Casa Gontz has brought along a stuffed cat that gets into a fight with the hedgehog interviewer. Chapter 4 - Boomtown Vienna 1 - Vienna bustles with artists and cultural life. A new generation is at the starting line, and it’s so damned hungry! Clubs and parties have been sprouting like toadstools in moist ground; traditional galleries are on the decline but there are more and more alternative hotspots are conquering new spaces—Einbaumöbel, Fenster C. LABfactory, Das Weisse Haus, Hwingr, slobberclub, Sunday Premium, i:da, and c17. On one day there are twenty openings and concerts, all visible on esel.at, an irreplaceable internet platform for the Austrian art-community run by Lorenz Seidler. Chapter 5 - Target Trash or “Fuck all of you in the Ass!” - One evening in the old Fluc, after “Live FM Zombiemouse” on stage, Karl Kilian speaks and presents the first issue of “Target Trash,” consisting of a home-burned CD, with the title “Popofpane,” packed with the FM Zombiemouse “Ear-Brain Experience” and a pamphlet of literature by a wide variety of authors. All of this is inside a DVD box with a hideous cover and stencil; the literary section starts off with the sentence “Fuck all of you in the ass!” Chapter 6 - In the Academy with the Deadly Sins - I was entered as FM Zombiemouse in the “slow show,” a live laptop performance. My upper body is naked and inscribed in lipstick with the names of the seven deadly sins. I’d been invited like this to the “La petite mort” festival in Slavonice—organized by Ronald von den Sternen and his from the Kunstakademie, at that time still directed by Franz Graf. This is one week in that tiny Czech town with the greatest people in the world—all sorts of weird individuals from practitioners of the Mayan religion to hardcore noise, from roast pork in red-wine sauce to early-morning orgies of gluttony in the town bakery, —entertaining belly rubs. I feel like a million bucks, and wish I could spend more time with these people. And so I take an entrance exam with Franz Graf, pass it, and now I’m at the Kunstakademie. Frederike Schweizer, Franz Graf’s assistant, advises the Romanian artist Anca Benera and me not to visit the academy. I don’t listen to her; one semester later Franz Graf leaves the university, and I end up with Daniel Richter. Chapter 7 - The Black Cube - In contrast to the anonymous “white cube”—a neutral exhibition style in which white walls form the background for artwork and any interaction between architecture and artwork is avoided— the “Black Cube” has far more intimacy to offer. An expressive composition and mise-en-scene enables the juxtaposition of contrasting works of art. Illumination can serve as a key part of any composition. Indeed, in the “Black Cube,” after the ordering and positioning of the artworks it is the lighting that makes the work. Given articulated lighting, new aspects of individual works can be developed. With this, many pictures are framed precisely; others are diagonally lit across from each other, or appear in a diffused light; several have only a small point shining upon them; some pieces are showered in pure white light; a tinge of color in others. Of course, the scene-setting inevitably carries its own interpretation with it. Through the various forms of lighting, it is possible to locate very different works within a common a dialogue. But, in terms of a total concept, the entire exhibition space has to have a single unified scenario. Here, various live acts can create a Gesamtkunstwerk as much as any DJ or VJ performance. Chapter 8 - The Cyclist 1 - The cyclist was on the home stretch; cutting through the chill despite his pedaling, he was freezing in his cold sweat. Tired, the cyclist wanted to stop. It was dark and bitterly cold. Suddenly, the cyclist spotted a stray cat; he grabbed it, slit its belly open and pulled it over his head. As such, the cyclist could hurry homewards with greater speed, since, fortunately, he was no longer freezing. Chapter 9 - tempo lectri - It was the start of the Vienna cable broadcaster okto.tv, a channel branding itself as open for everyone and for everything. I made my way to a presentation of it and to meet Al Bird Gore and Gratisgeorg Sturmzechpreller. For the next two years, I created a culture and arts broadcast called K³, and Al Bird and Gratisgeorg had their turns, producing the trashcast “tempo lectri,” which so far has had only three episodes: “How to do for me & you,” “Österreichfilm” and “The Broadcast with Mindy.” It’s absolutely crazy, bordering on genius—absolute wreckage and junk. See it here, at youtube.com/user/elvisonLSD. Chapter 10 - The KOSMOPROLET Manifest (extract 1) - A KOSMOPROLET is from the bottom of the heart a KOSMOPROLET. A KOSMOPROLET thinks global, but is not as elitist as a Cosmopolite. A KOSMOPROLET is not a priori from a higher class. KOSMOPROLETS can have any family background, but this does not mean that they have to be always poor like a church mouse. Lots of now living KOSMOPROLETS are from upper-middleclass, but with lots of good thinking in their brains. With “good thinking” a KOSMOPROLET transcends his family background. To be a KOSMOPROLET is at first a brain thing: the KOSMOPROLET is interested in the world and its inhabitants. KOSMOPROLETS think more than just about themselves, but do take general responsibility for others! This they do for humans and the world in general. KOSMOPROLETS like to travel the world–in reality and also within brain. They try to look behind things, to find substance and understand people. KOSMOPROLETS have similarities with artists, but they don’t have to be one. A KOSMOPROLET can be intellectual, but that’s also not a necessity. Most important is to be open! A KOSMOPROLET takes care. A KOSMOPROLET tries to understand. A KOSMOPROLET asks questions. A KOSMOPROLET scrutinizes. A KOSMOPROLET does argumentation. KOSMOPROLETS think beyond their horizon. A KOSMOPROLET is sexy. Chapter 11 - A Naked Man in the Slobberclub - I see Christian Falsnaes for the first time at Slobberclub with the musician and artist Nikolaus Suchentrunk in Elektro Gönner. Christian gives us a performance with video, singing and words in interaction with projections while he philosophizes, and removes all his clothes. I’m bowled over by his presence. What an amazing male nude! Chapter 12 - An Exhibition Trilogy Sauna—WomenArtists/ MixedGroups/ MenArtists - In 2006, the devil got into me, and I created an exhibition at Dietheater with over a hundred participating artists, three exhibits in three weeks on the “sauna principle”—first women (WomenArtists), then the mixed sauna (MixedGroups), with the men (MenArtists) at the end. There was no assignment of content in terms of theme or any such shit, the “sauna-principle” was purely structural. In arranging it, I reach out for the many excellent artists, DJs and DJanes, performers, musicians, filmmakers, etc. who have crossed my path and whom I treasure. It turns into a three-week party, after which I get ill for the next five weeks, and deeply in love. Chapter 13 - Flashback 1 or The Killing of the Duck - I catch a duck, tie up its legs and hang it head-up from a large nail in the wall. Then I grab it by the back of the head, raise it high, expose its windpipe and slit it with an enormous knife. The duck wildly bats its wings as it bleeds to death, I have a wonderful feeling of mystic orgies (© Hermann Nietsch). Chapter14 - Die Karl Kilian Festival - The first official “Karl Kilian Festival” took place in 2007, in Vienna. Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” received a new interpretation with a screening, accompanied by a trashterrier DJ-set, the artist Anna-Maria Bogner smacks her nose into a glass wall in the fog-installation “Smoking Gallery,” in which the Hamburg-born painter-musician Onno Ennoson presents through the fog his “Shadowspring Reprise. Concert for 9 Tape Recorders.” Al Bird Dirt and First Fatal Kiss rock the bathing ship, and it all ends in a garbage dump of art piled in wienstation with all of the previous works from me and the group exhibition “A Tribute to Karl Kilian” in the Ragnarhof. In one work, by Mirijam Mitspieler, it is possible to toss darts directly at the curator (Karl Kilian). Through one work by Lorenz Seidler, I make indirect acquaintance with Christian Eisenberger and his work. Chapter 15 - L. and I - In contrast to the Vienna Kunstakademie, something’s always happening at the academy in Düsseldorf, regardless of the season. We—Richter’s class—are on an exchange with the Tal R class in Düsseldorf and are showing our works. On the first, unofficial opening evening, it’s swarming with suits and Altbier is being served, I swill it down and it does me right. A change of scene: two hours later, I’m standing, lightly illuminated, in our exhibition space and wondering who all of these people are who have come to look at our stuff. One man enters, accompanied by an exquisitely beautiful Asian woman, and yet another man right on his heels. He steers his way over towards my works from the “Pop.Uniform.War.Smacks” series and looks at them closely. I decide to ask him who he is: surgeon, lawyer or whatever kind of person would show up at an unofficial Monday opening at the Kunstakademie. I politely detain him as he’s leaving: “Excuse me, could I ask who you are?” He looks briefly at me, then at light speed brings his head up to mine, stopping at a distance of 10 cm face to face: “The question is not who I am, the question is who YOU are!!!” At this, the little man behind him tries to move me on with a sharp, cold poke between the shoulders. I ignore this and reply – telling him the whole truth – “I am Karl Kilian. But who are you?” He takes a sharp look at me, then pronounces with great pomp: “I am the rector of this Academy!” I still don’t know much more, so I ask him. “Yes, OK, but who are you?” – He turns around without a word and leaves. His entourage follows. One of my friends comes over to me and explains that it really was Markus Lüpertz. Chapter 16 - The (Art-)Universe of an Artist 1 - One artist is commissioned to make his/her own universe. It can have a relation to reality, but it doesn’t need to. It can draw upon art history, but it isn’t required. Artistic rule #1: Art needs to do nothing. An artist need not make art, need not sell him/herself, need not make any offers, need not debase him/herself, need not be megalomaniac, need not be discursive. – But when he/she makes artwork, then he/should comprise a universe. Chapter 17 - The Cyclist 2 - The cyclist is stopped at an intersection behind a truck that has stopped so stupidly that the cyclist can’t snake his way past. The cyclist begins to press with his front wheel in anger against the rear bumper of the truck. He does it until the truck is completely destroyed and the truck driver is dead. Chapter 18 - The KOSMOPROLET Manifest (Extract 2) - A KOSMOPROLET can have a regular job or be workless. A KOSMOPROLET can be rich or poor. A KOSMOPROLET can have a villa or be homeless. KOSMOPROLETS try to fulfill themselves. KOSMOPROLETS try to live their dreams. A KOSMOPROLET thinks & acts worldwide. A KOSMOPROLET tries to be honest. A KOSMOPROLET admits to love. A KOSMOPROLET doesn’t believe in nations & geographical borders. A KOSMOPROLET is against violence. A KOSMOPROLET tries to cross intellectual boarders. A KOSMOPROLET always tries, because a “being” is either appearance or only temporary. Chapter 19 - Curatorial Principles - For me as a curator, two things are essential: 1) the artist cannot be an egotistical asshole; 2) the work of the artist must be very good, or at least give an idea of great artistic potential. Chapter 20 - Sauna 08 or How I met “Umelec” - The third weekend of Sauna 08. MenArtists. After 2006, I somehow persuaded myself to see through this insane project one more time—a second casting, so to speak. The whole thing runs under the secondary title “Festival for Extensive Art,” once again in the Black Cube a theater, all kinds of artists abound, in short: a festival! As I said, it’s now the third weekend, explained this way: “For Sauna 08 we also hope for the creation of an interdisciplinary communication space, the complete mixing of art, life, party, discourse.” It’s completely mixed up together. Utterly knackered, I’m speaking pure nonsense. The (actually working) sauna, built inside the exhibition space by Simon Häfele, has proved its worth, naked sweating people standing with beer, and other visitors are in a clump by the bar, inside there’s a genuine Indian singing (Bobby Velvet). Against this background, suddenly two people come over to me, introduce themselves as Ivan and Milena from the art journal Umelec, we start gabbling—here we are ;-) Chapter 21 - About Karl Kilian 1, Karl Kilian Stinks, or The Trademark of Karl Kilian, or Iconography, or The Artist as Subject - The open space is covered with 4000 posters: Karl Kilian is watching you / Karl Kilian smells / Karl Kilian is listening / Karl Kilian has more / Karl Kilian is flying away / Karl Kilian clears his throat / Karl Kilian stinks / Karl Kilian redecorates / Karl Kilian speaks nonsense / Karl Kilian and you / Karl Kilian is everyone / Karl Kilian once more / Karl Kilian forwards / Karl Kilian collapses / Karl Kilian mixes / Karl Kilian growls / Karl Kilian reads / Karl Kilian sprints / Karl Kilian has you / Karl Kilian for ever / Karl Kilian in space / Karl Kilian is revolting / Karl Kilian is a superhero / Karl Kilian spins / Karl Kilian brays like a goat / Karl Kilian twice more / Karl Kilian sweats / Karl Kilian superhits… Chapter 22 - Flashback 2 or The Duck Slaughter - Unfortunately, I killed the duck at the wrong time. The tips of the feathers remain stuck inside the skin. Besides this, the lukewarm corpse stinks like a pig, not even a drop of Davidoff Cool Water splashed under the nose can drown out the stench. Well thanks! Chapter 23 - Boomtown Vienna 2 – Andrew Stanton-Raz - After one of our KOSMOPROLET-concerts at Rhiz, a man comes over to me with a humungous movie camera, introduces himself as Andrew Stanton-Raz, a filmmaker from London. He tells me that he wants to make a documentary about the Austrian music scene. I give one of the first interviews after a gig in Ost-Klub kitchen, several others follow over time. Andrew is trying to cover the entire Vienna music scene, from the electronic musician Fennesz to the rock band Bulbul, from left and right and up and down and putting them all together. In the meantime, Andrew has so much material that it could create 2 documentaries: Part 1: “Vinyl: Tales From the Vienna Underground” and Part 2: “Vinyl: Not Everything Will be Taken into the Future.” Gorgeous! Chapter 24 - The (Art-) Universe of an Artist 2 - Karl Kilian plumbs the boundaries of many genres, sometimes stretching them too far, but that can’t break them. Through his panoply of projects—with music (KOSMOPROLET, fm zombiemaus, Pornobone), as artist, performer, aspiring porn star, editor with the art journals Eutopia and plakazin.at, filmmaker, TV producer, self-destructive genius, writer, plumber, actor, dancer, universal dilettante, art theorist, literary critic, snowboard instructor, curator—Karl Kilian investigates the contemporary artistic individual and expands his (Art-) Universe—piece by piece, work by work, line by line. In these the artist-individual stands at the center as the creator. Ultimately, it matters little if someone has an original work by Karl Kilian. Or only his little finger. Chapter 25 - Boomtown Vienna 3; Rokko’s Adventures - Quite early in my Vienna days, I make acquaintance with Clemens Marschall, a.k.a. Rokko Anal. He is not just the sole owner of a “Rasputinrecord Whoreskull” T-shirt, but he is also the publisher of the wonderful magazine “Rokko’s Adventures.” The publication attracts writers like the essayist Thomas Fröhlich, but could also find its way into the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Here is an extract from the self-description provided by Rokko: Rokko’s Adventures has existed since 2007, is domiciled in Vienna and appears every half-year. Alongside articles about irrelevant junk between music, art, film and literature it also contains detailed reportage and scientific explications of important components of the journal’s orientation. Reports are provided about interesting, mutually obscure sub-, inter- and high-cultural phenomena: skull trepanning, Oma, the Vienna underworld, Olga Neuwirth, Joe Coleman, The Melvins, corpse embalming, exopolitics, ruth weiss, Mind Control, Lubricated Goat, Pharao King Maw and vaginal aroma are only a few of the numerous research topics. Various life-patterns are presented alongside each other and not, as is usually the case, placed in contrast. Many observers find this method somewhat schizophrenic, we find it true to life (rokkosadventures.at). Chapter 26 - About Karl Kilian 2 – Karl Kilian, the general experiment of extensive art - During the solution of an art robbery in 1980, Karl Kilian was discovered next to a genuine Picasso in a trashcan. A Protestant couple adopted him, but all too soon they shuffled off this mortal coil. Karl Kilian fled the juvenile services right after the cold-meat party, and made his way into a cloister of nuns as the gardener. During his amateur Sunday attempts at restoring frescos, his overwhelming talent was discovered. Chapter 27 - The Bed of Bernd Oppl - Contrust-music and the recording label Interstellar organized at the Linz City Workshops the “kitch’n kulture_freeparty,” including Washer, mes. and myself as fm zombiemaus vs. PornoBone. I shout out my lungs on stage, then a real celebration starts, and we continue to the legendary Warmer Hans (best Würstelstandl ever) for three Kaiser rolls with Pusztalaberln (bow down to its majesty!) with spicy ketchup – the perfect hangover killer ;-) Then we head off to see Karin Fisslthaler a.k.a. Cherry Sunkist and Bernd Oppl aka Horace. Bernd is someone I’ve never met before, but Lucia and I first of all make acquaintance with his bed. What a wonderful bed. – 2 years later I personally meet Bernd in the Tirol at 1500 meters above sea level as an artist in residence of the city of Burgstein, and have a great time with him. Bernd is Don Quixote, I am Sancho Panza. Chapter 28 - Boomtown Vienna 4 - Meanwhile, in its third year is “sound:frame – Festival for the Visualisation of Electronic Music”, curated by Eva Fischer. Equally established is the exhibition series “unORTnung” or the “fullframe Kunstfilmfestival”. And hard to believe but true: even more genuine afterparties, starting right at 6 in the morning, again and again. Even if there are still such arch-conservative holdouts like Ursula Stenzel, the representative of the 1st Bezirk of Vienna, who want to make the parks off-limits for non-participants, try to ban street artists, and believe that clubs should close their doors and lock them by 4 a.m. But we truly are who we are – the time of these people has already passed! Chapter 29 - Flashback 3 or Skinning the Duck - Considering how impossible it is to rip the feathers out of the dead duck, it strikes me as best to remove the animal’s entire skin. It stinks less; but alas for the crispy crackling once it’s roasted. Chapter 30 - Come together! KilMor Prod. - Manuel Gras, whom I met through our mutual friend the writer Thomas Havlik, invited me to his birthday party in 2006. After a rehearsal with the girl group I then was involved with, “The shampoo girls” (Verena Brückner, Bernadette Reiter, myself & Karin Ankele from the Brüll Schwestern) in the Bulbul rehearsal room at WUK, I turn up at the party. A huge loft with lights embedded in the mahogany floor, a gigantic bar and black leather furniture all around the room. Drop-dead chic, perfectly styled, absolutely wow—in short: I don’t know what to make of myself. Coming to my rescue was the champagne and also –YOOHOO!—my favorite pinball machine (after the Simpsons one): Terminator 2! So I spend two hours with it, batting the ball around and drinking champagne. Then I head out onto the Veranda and face the people. Here I meet a wonderful young lady, her name is Lucia Morandini. KilMor Productions have found their beginning.
We acquire seven children and live on a houseboat in Tuscany.

01.02.2009