Truck tour, one night stands, and Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding

fig.: 'Gym Club' by Massimo Furlan, premiere on 27 September 2013 at the festival of new art Steirischer Herbst in Austria. Photo: Massimo Furlan.

...are themes of art productions seen at the program of this year's festival of new art 'Steirischer Herbst' (20 September - 13 October 2013) in Styria, Austria.

The festival's seductive Leitmotif 'Liaisons dangereuses' addresses today's social landscape where revolutions are replaced by contracts, coalitions between the strongest political parties which are living these alliances like 'marriages of convenience'.

The new art festival Steirischer Herbst will provide some food (music, film, theatre, lectures, etc.) for thinking about our society. The most interesting program category seems to be the one concerning 'performance'; such as Swiss-Italian Massimo Furlan's performance 'Gym Club' (world premiere on 27 September). The exploration of the culture of bodybuilding is inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger who is the artist's personal sporting icon. Furlan follows Schwarzenegger's career which started in Graz (capital city of Styria).

'One Night Stands' is the title of an event series which tends to be rather an art experiment than common performance art. It's a sort of stand-up Saturday night art flirt between two artists or art groups. Nobody knows what will happen - even not the artists themselves when they meet each other on stage. At one of these One Night Stands on 28 September, the Styrian women's group Rabtaldirndln will meet New York performer Ann Liv Young - there is only one fact that seems to be predictable: "things will be less masculine..." steirischerherbst.at

The name Ann Liv Young can be found several times in this year's festival program; for her feministic-pop-therapy-performance 'Sherry Truck' - named after her blonde-dyed alter ego 'Sherry', Ann Liv Young will be with her truck on tour in Styria and will serve 'Sherrapies'.

fig.: 'Sherry Truck' by Ann Liv Young; truck tour through Styria on occasion of Steirischer Herbst (20 September until 13 October 2013) in Austria. Photo: Michael A. Guerrero.




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