What can a five-week art and culture festival like the Wiener Festwochen add to a city that is filled to the brim with cultural offers and urban initiatives? The Wiener Festwochen were established during the 1950s with the aim of making a contribution to opening Austria to the world. After the eras of Austrofascism and Nazism had isolated Vienna and Austria, it was important to reconnect with the world, to re-integrate the city and the country into the international discourse of art and culture.
Only a few decades previously, at the start of the century, Vienna had been considered the capital of Modernism with such proponents of the movement as Freud, Klimt and Schoenberg. The city presumed to change a whole world by means of art, theory and riot. The time has now come for a Second Modernism – global, delimited, utopian, radically aesthetic and radically political. To that end, the Wiener Festwochen are establishing the Free Republic of Vienna together with the citizens of Vienna and international supporters. The Free Republic of Vienna is not a vessel but a total work of art – from the opening event via various productions, its chosen topics and up to the Vienna Declaration (the Constitution of the Free Republic of Vienna). The name Free Republic of Vienna references attempts throughout history to liberate the ‘republic’ (res publica – the matters of public interest, meaning everything that concerns society) of prevalent attitudes, institutional structures and ingrained norms. In other words: casting a look at the world and at Vienna that is new, free, together, filled with humour and sincerity.
The Free Republic of Vienna is a place of production and presentation by renowned and by aspiring artists from all genres and of experimental, radical as well as established artistic visions from throughout the world. Overall, the Free Republic of Vienna considers itself an all-out place where classics (and classic forms of art and genres) are not negated but are re-appropriated, with a presence of politically engaged works and formally experimental art and where new formats are created.
The Free Republic is a place for an equally joyful and sincere conquest of the Res Publica, of public debates, institutions and spaces, of connection and exchange between artists, activists and the audience. Together, we will discuss the future and enact new visions in a wide range of participatory formats and expanded local and international partnerships.
For five weeks, the Free Republic will turn Vienna into an international laboratory of the arts and community, for: We owe the world a revolution!
