Innsbruck International

Innsbruck International is a contemporary biennial of the arts that invites international artists to make use of Innsbruck’s extraordinary historical and contemporary venues in the presentation of their works of visual art, film, and sound as well as performances and installations.

In 2018, the biennial will be informed by the theme of “Agents of Social Change”. In addition to ten venues with exhibitions, this rendition will also feature performative highlights that follow this year’s politically topical theme.

The Neue Galerie was a location of the Biennale as part of a cooperation. Works by Melanie Bonajo and Marge Monko were shown.

Melanie Bonajo’s (1978, Heerlen, The Netherlands) practice examines subjects of spirituality, gender, sexuality and our shifting relationship with nature. Through her videos, performances, photographs and installations, she explores how technological advances and commodity-based pleasures increase feelings of alienation, removing an individual’s sense of belonging. Captivated by concepts of the divine, Bonajo investigates the spiritual emptiness of her generation, attempting to understand fundamentally existential questions by reflecting on ideas around classification, gender, domesticity, and our collective attitudes towards value.
Bonajo’s work has been exhibited and performed in international art institutions including Tate Modern, London; Frankfurter Kunstverein; EYE Film Institute, Amsterdam; STUK Arts Centre, Leuven; De Bond, Brugge; Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger; De Appel, Amsterdam; Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Moscow Biennale; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Fondazione Prada, Milan; PPOW Gallery and PS1/MoMA, New York. Bonajo has contributed to several art magazines, was creative editor of Capricious Magazine, and has curated various shows. She has published several books, including Matrix Botanica, numero 1 – Non-Human Persons; Spheres; Furniture Bondage; and I Have A Room With Everything, and, in 2013, released an album with her band ZaZaZoZo (in collaboration with Joseph Marzolla). Melanie Bonajo is represented by Galerie Akinci, Amsterdam.
Text: Chris Clarke

Marge Monko (1976, Tallinn, Estonia) primarily works with photography, installation and moving images, and her practice is particularly interested in how these mediums are and have been used as tools in science, politics, publicity, etc. Her works are often inspired by historical images and influenced by theories of psychoanalysis, feminism and visual culture. Depending on the subject, Monko employs methods including documentation, staging and appropriation – often combining these different approaches.
Monko has long been working with themes related to women’s roles in society and how these have developed over time. Her recent projects have explored the visual aspects that shape us and our values, including demonstrations of how advertisements and the display of commodities define women as well as the keywords used to construct femininity in commercial culture: beauty, desirability and fertility.
Monko lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. Her previous solo exhibitions include Tallinn City Gallery; mumok, Vienna; Tartu Art Museum; Platán Galéria, Budapest; and Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki; as well as group exhibitions at Art Space Pythagorion, Samos; Electronic Arts Festival, Bozar, Brussels; Framer Framed, Amsterdam; Balassi Institute, Ljubljana; Riga Art Space; CCA Glasgow; Bétonsalon, Paris; and Manifesta 9, Genk. She studied photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and was the recipient of the Henkel Art.Award in 2012. Marge Monko is represented by Ani Molnár Gallery, Budapest.

Text: Chris Clarke