Rainer Ganahl
If The Price is Right
If The Price is Right
class differences, race, and exploitation. The artist critiques the unjust distribution of wealth, challenges societal norms and prejudices, and invites viewers to reflect on the impact of class on individuals and communities. By exploring these aspects, Ganahl's exhibition challenges global power dynamics, particularly in relation to colonial legacies and postcolonial contexts while it provides a nuanced portrayal of class differences, inviting us to re-examine and question the social structures that shape our lives.
This survey also explores Ganahl's innovative approaches to performance and his critique of the fashion system, his use of body movements, and his exploration of the relationship between the performer and the audience. The ongoing project COMME des MARXISTS encompasses Ganahl’s prolific work grouped into a series of fashion
collections. Each collection explores a specific aspect of capitalistic society: from privileged education to labor exploitation, from security and control to climate justice, atmospheric politics, and environmental pollution. Creating connections between the industrial revolution, performance, fashion, and the notion of sustainability, COMME des
MARXISTS, challenges dominant narratives and disrupts traditional power structures and our understanding of the fashion system.
and prompting philosophical inquiry. Through these techniques, the works invite contemplation of the cyclical nature of temporal existence and encourage the viewer to question their understanding of time as a fixed and linear concept. Thus, the exhibition aims to provoke philosophical reflection and challenges viewers to question their
preconceived notions of reality and meaning.
About The Artist
Rainer Ganahl is a New York based Austrian-born conceptual artist. His work has been widely
exhibited at prominent cultural institutions including the 48th Venice Biennale, Kunsthaus
Bregenz, Austria, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle
Kunst, Bremen, Germany. His presence at the exhibition »New York - States of Mind« (Haus
der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin/Queens Museum of Art, New York, 2007/08), clearly indicates
Ganahl’s rootedness in the New York art scene.He is the subject and author of several
published catalogues, among them Rainer Ganahl: Educational Complex (Vienna: Generali
Foundation, 1997). Ganahl engages with and critiques various systems of education, and his
work revolves around three key groups: the ‘Seminar/Lecture’ (S/L) series, the ‘Reading
Seminars’ and his language studies (for example, Basic Japanese), all of which emanate from
the early 1990s. He stages his work in lieu of a seminar or lecture and does language and
reading projects with a special feature called the language of emigration. The artist has
described his use of images as ‘visual investigations’, and this is precisely their function –
sociological indexes to a form of intellectual engagement through ‘choice’. As Ganahl himself
has claimed: ‘A multicultural, pluralistic, democratic, non-arrogant, inclusive policy of education
open to heterogeneity is essential for society to survive.’ He studied at the University of Applied
Arts, Vienna (Peter Weibel) and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorff (Nam June Paik).