Dani Gal

Artist in Residence (08/2019–09/2019)

Three Works for Piano

Visual artist, Dani Gal, investigates how personal and collective histories and memorisations are produced, selected and carried through time and space by means of intensive research and examination of historical image text and sound documents, which he subsequently juxtaposes alongside current political and cultural occurrences.

In his video and sound installations, the artist reconstructs and reconfigures pre-existing documentary materials through subtle re-appropriations to emphasise collective histories and personal stories, that have fallen prey to oblivion and await the attention of historians and other cultural commentators.

Gal attributes special attention to readapting predominantly historic sources of language and sound into performative environments: emphasising the circumstances of the source’s production, cultural relevance and thus creating new connections between historic materials and contemporary cultural contexts.

During the artist’s residence in Vienna – hosted by Blood Mountain Projects and the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute, funded by the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria, and scheduled to take place between August and October 2019 – Gal will revisit events from the 20th century musical avantgarde to elaborate on his examination on the complexities of transgenerational trauma and its effects on the relationships between prepetrators and victims of nationalist oppression.

As the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute’s first Artist in Residence, several public events accompany his fellowship, which are presented in partnership with Blood Mountain Projects.

Dani Gal, born 1975 in Jerusalem, lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design in Jerusalem, the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule in Frankfurt and the Cooper Union in New York. His films and works have been shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2018), Documenta 14 (2017), Kunsthalle Wien (2015), Kunsthaus in Zurich (2015), Berlinale Forum Expanded (2014), Jewish Museum in New York (2014), Kunsthalle in St. Gallen Swizerland (2013), New Museum in New York (2012), 54th Venice Biennale (2011), and the Istanbul Biennale (2011).

Blood Mountain Projects

Blood Mountain Projects is an independent cross-disciplinary research and curatorial platform. Its mission is to explore the cultural past, present and potential of Central Europe. It was founded in Budapest by Jade Niklai and Tom Sloan in 2010 and operates with the support of an international board of trustees. In 2015 Blood Mountain relocated to Vienna and in 2018 became an Austrian registered Kulturverein.

The Nordbahnhof Project is Blood Mountain’s first programme dedicated to to the cultural heritage of contemporary Austria and its Holocaust past.

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