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On the second evening of my trip I’m sitting in the Loos Bar, pressed between two friends who happen to share the same first name, M and M. The place feels smaller than I remember from my last visit. My eyes wander up to the coffered marble ceiling as the two of them talk across me. I like the little curtains of stiff, waxed fabric around the lamps on the wall. I take a photo and send it to Y. Greetings from Vienna, I write. On my right, M’s friend informs me that taking pictures here is forbidden. On my left, the other M’s friend samples my Negroni Sbagliato and notes that he prefers the classic. We leave, and I get myself a Käsekrainer, which the Viennese wind nearly lifts from my plate. Using Google Maps, I lead M and myself to Elisabethenstrasse, where A and some other gallerists have organized a party. I hope the venue is big enough, I say to M. The venue wasn’t big enough. It stretched like a long, narrow corridor deep into the building and was packed. At the very back I ran into C, one of the best-looking artists in Europe, who was waiting his turn for the bathroom but eventually lost patience and just started doing coke in the line. I think I’ll go to bed, I tell him. Ok, maybe we’ll see each other one of these days, he says. Yes, that would be nice, I say.
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Yesterday evening, just after arriving in Vienna, I went to Pech, which isn’t part of the festival, to see Jim C. Nedd’s show. Jim exhibited small-format photographs, hung loosely: foaming sea, worn deep-blue ceramic tiles, tropical vegetation. At Schleuse (again, not part of the festival), I watched Ken Okiishi’s video from outside, climbing up onto the windowsill next to F, A, and M. In Ken’s work, a very American, very athletic, good-looking man, maybe a few years younger than me, takes outfits off and on while Ken experiments with different camera zooms, and they drift in and out of a casual conversation that sometimes deepens into heavier themes. To conclude the night, M then took me to a legendary sausage stand in a parking garage before I headed back to the hotel.
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The next day I woke up and checked if Y had read my message. I exercised a bit in the small space beside the hotel bed, then showered. Getting dressed, I first put on the sneakers I’d recently bought in Paris, but then decided on the black loafers instead, as everyone seemed to have dressed up the night before. After breakfast I set out. I must have looked a little silly, the curated by map in hand, ticking off galleries one by one. I came across some good art: Angharad Williams’ photographs, cinematic close-ups of her mouth while performing, presented at Lombardi Kargl; Nina Beier’s mechanical bull at Croy Nielsen, moving slowly under the weight of milk-powder-filled bottles on its back; Paul Levack’s tender photograph of his dog Enzo at Layr; Nora Schultz’s silver gelatin prints of wedges at Felix Gaudlitz; and at Dawid Radziszewski, a collaboration between Mickael Marman and Phung-Tien Phan, a dinosaur teddy in a kufiya gazing at a painting.
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On my last night in Vienna, in a bar, I tell B about my irrational fear of studio visits, how I am convinced I bore people, since there is never much to see, and how I prefer to meet curators for a coffee instead. With T and A I chat about a German museum director. We all agree she kills the artists when she organizes a retrospective, but at least she kills them beautifully. Curating, after all, is not an easy job, especially in the context of curated by, where the commercial interests and aesthetics of galleries come into play. Some shows, like Otto Bonnen’s at Shore or Kathrin Bentele’s at Lombardi-Kargl, were presentations with distinct curatorial handwriting; others, however, struck me as lame, not lame enough or questionable.
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All week, I had been wondering why there were so many people in the Viennese art scene whom I had never seen anywhere outside this city before: gallerists, artists, curators. The walk from the bar back to the hotel took me past a symmetrical stone staircase with balustrades, iron railings, and lamp posts that bathed the steps in orange light, framed by flowerbeds overflowing with lush blooms. Fucking beautiful. Vienna is definitely cozy (kommod). It’s pretty boring here most of the time, T had told me earlier. It’s not always this exciting, she added. T has lived in Vienna for many years and, as far as I know, doesn’t plan to leave. Maybe, at least outside of curated by, Vienna is a little too chill, I think.
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