Galerie Wonnerth Dejaco is pleased to present a very special project, which revisits the history of its location at Ballgasse 6 in a unique way. Less than 4 years after the opening of the gallery in September 2020, the exhibition activity expands to the loft building in the courtyard of this address, where the renowned gallery Schapira Beck was located and, above all, the epic Peter Pakesch Gallery.
Peter Pakesch agreed to curate the exhibition for this pop-up project. The artistic positions of Steffi Alte, Alighiero e Boetti, Georg Petermichl, Heimo Zobernig and a video by Hans Küng, Dorit Magreiter, Mathias Poledna and Florian Pumhösl atmospherically set the framework of a cross-generational space, with specific examples that tie the local to the international art discourse.
Ballgasse, and specifically number 6, has a historically relevant and impressive history, dating back to the ball courts of the 17th century, but its fame in the contemporary art world dates back to Peter Pakesch’s gallery, which helped a number of artists start their international careers in the years of 1981 to 1993 .
The show combines positions that build a bridge between the Then and the Now: Georg Petermichl from the gallery program of Wonnerth Dejaco and Heimo Zobernig from the gallery program of Peter Pakesch. Zobernig’s work literally bridges (architectural) changes between the Then and the Now. Petermichl adds a socio-psychological notion to the changes between the 1980s and the current art practice. Steffi Alte, who studied with Heimo Zobernig, is contributing a congenious space, the “demoraum k” that is an exhibition space as well as a sculptural expression a work she made at university for others to show in from 2009-2010. A work by Alighiero e Boetti is reminiscent of a show that Peter Pakesch always wanted to do but never got the chance to. Accompanied by the video piece of Hans Küng, Doris Magreiter, Mathias Poledna and Florian Pumhösl about the “loft” as the predominant idea of an art space like the Peter Pakesch gallery back in the 1980s and 1990s.
About Peter Pakesch
Peter Pakesch (born in 1955) worked as a curator for Forum Stadtpark and the Steirischer Herbst until the late 1970s. This was followed by a study visit to New York and the founding of the Gallery Peter Pakesch in Ballgasse 6 and Ungargasse 27 in 1981, until 1993. In 1985, Peter Pakesch founded the Grazer Kunstverein together with Helmut Strobl and shortly afterwards the magazine Fama & Fortune Bulletin together with Johannes Schlebrügge. After numerous exhibitions at the Grazer Kunstverein and the National Gallery in Prague, he took over as director of the Kunsthalle Basel from 1996 to 2003. From 2003 to 2015, he was director of the Universalmuseum Joanneum and founding director of the Kunsthaus Graz. Peter Pakesch has been Chairman of the Board of the Maria Lassnig Foundation since 2015. Since then, he has worked on exhibitions and projects with artists such as Maria Lassnig, Oswald Wiener, Michel Majerus, Andy Warhol, Christopher Wool, Joseph Kosuth, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Ute Müller, Karel Malich, Christoph Meier, Cäcilia Brown, Liesl Raff, and the art of the 1980s.
