Die Wiener Gruppe/ The Vienna Group by Peter Weibel

That painting and object art also profited from his achievements in media theory can be seen in numerous exhibitions he planned and took part in, where relationships across different media led to new insights. As the director of the ZKM in Karlsruhe for many years, Weibel was the figurehead of media-based art and theory. Among his many groundbreaking large exhibitions accompanied by comprehensive and detailed publications, his curatorial contributions to the Venice Biennale have gained legendary status, such as when in 1993 he worked with a group of international artists and deconstructed the concept of national presentations, or when in 1997 he accorded the Wiener Gruppe the International reception they had long deserved.

With all his knowledge and energy, it is not surprising that he spoke more quickly than some of his listeners could follow. As a universalist he was artist and critic, curator, theorist, scientist, professor, museum director, musician, and more. He took on all manner of conceivable roles within the field of art, and when necessary he invented new roles. Weibel’s influence on a younger generation of artists working with media has shaped art history here to this day. This is also evidenced in his actions performed together with VALIE EXPORT, which showed that feminist art can also have a male component. It is thanks to Weibel that one can say that in Austria conceptual art is more interested in language and politics than elsewhere.

The philosophy of language propounded by the French poststructuralist philosophers found not just an interested recipient in Weibel, for he knew how to transform theory into artistic deeds and thereby to ignite the theory.

He also further radicalized the Wiener Gruppe's use and critique of language when he said that he was less interested in the relations of the words to each other in the new genre of concrete poetry and far more in its relationship to social reality. During the scandalous action Art and Revolution at the University of Vienna in 1968, which became known as 'Uni-Ferkelei' -the university filth -he performed alongside fellow artists Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, and Oswald Wiener, quite literally holding an inflammatory speech against the bigoted politics of a state that blatantly ignored the facts of history. In the 1960s, when social upheaval was accompanied by the radical politicization of art, Peter Weibel was already one of the leading and most courageous opponents of tradition and stuffed-up complacency.

Die Wiener Gruppe/ The Vienna Group by Peter Weibel