“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”

“Pants on fire. Art and other fictions” a project by Klaus Speidel and TransArts / DieAngewandte at Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna

“Liar, liar, pants on fire” is what English children chant to accuse their peers of dishonesty and online, many a politician’s trousers have been symbolically lit on fire. But if liars’ pants really caught fire, would artists get away unscathed?

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, a famous quote attributed an infamous propaganda genius, can hardly save the artist’s ass. But is make-believe, a central means of children’s games and art production since thousands of years, the same as lying? Opinions diverge: Plato was not amused and decided to kick the artists out of his imaginary ideal republic, where Aristotle made imitation his ideal of learning.

When Joseph Beuys plummeted from the sky in World War II, was saved by nomads only to embark on a miraculous journey to renew art, few people knew that it was at best a fever dream and at worst a bloody lie. But who prefers the boring truth to a dazzling artist figure?

But not only the most deliberate artist myth creations underline the art world’s intricate relationship to the semi-true. Artists create fictions, ask fort he voluntary suspension of disbelief, and question, what can be asserted. This is what “Pants on fire. Art and other fictions” is about. Not truth or lie, but blurry pictures of things that (never) happened.

PANTS ON FIRE. Art and other fictions.
A Project by Klaus Speidel and TransArts / DieAngewandte
Krinzinger Projekte, Schottenfeldgasse 45, 1070 Vienna

Opening: Thursday, June 4, 2020, 5-7 pm
Exhibition duration: June 5 – June 17, 2020
Curator’s Walkthroughs: Thursday, June 4, 6 pm, Friday, June 5, 4 pm, Saturday, June 6, 2 pm.
Artists: Kaja Clara Joo | Dejan Kaludjerović | Marlene Lahmer | Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza | Nazanin Mehraein | Lara Reichmann | Hector Schofield | Nedko Solakov |Kai Trausenegger | Kay Walkowiak | Ramiro Wong