Mathias Poledna
10th Liverpool Biennial, UK
14 July – 28 October 2018
The artistic concept and title of the 10th Liverpool Biennial, Beautiful world, where are you?, derived from a 1788 poem by the German poet Friedrich Schiller, later set to music by Austrian composer Franz Schubert in 1819. The years between the composition of Schiller’s poem and Schubert’s song saw great upheaval and profound change in Europe, from the French Revolution to the fall of the Napoleonic Empire. Today the poem continues to suggest a world gripped by deep uncertainty – a world of social, political and environmental turmoil. It can be seen as a lament, but also as an invitation to reconsider our past, advancing a new sense of beauty that might be shared in a more equitable way.
Artist Mathias Poledna was among those invited to participate in the 2018 edition of the biennial. Phileas co-produced a major new film work by the Austrian artist, which premiered in the exhibition.
Mathias Poledna (born in 1965 in Vienna, Austria, lives and works in Los Angeles,USA) is a video-artist whose work often takes the form of highly sophisticated films that betray a tension between the visuals presented and their cultural and political implications. Entertainment and its production are key subjects for Poledna, as he focuses on the forms and materials that capture the imagination and illustrate societies to themselves. Past solo exhibitions include The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Secession, Vienna; Portikus, Frankfurt; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and mumok, Vienna. Further, he exhibited at the Austrian Pavillon at the 55th La Biennale di Venezia, 2013.
