Via Illuminativa

What if all the tanks in the world were pink and sunk into the ground? If the most diverse people sang "Happy X-mas - War is over" together in one choir? Or if the atomic bomb was no longer a threat? Then we as a global community would probably be much closer to what Immanuel Kant saw as our task: peace. The Via Illuminativa exhibition of contemporary art spread across the city interferes with the urban and social space of Bressanone with different media such as photo, video, audio and sculpture and encourages a multi-voiced dialogue on peace. This is done by means of local and international art positions.

The picture shows the artwork "THE PATH TO PEACE" by artist Karolina Gacke, which will be part of the exhibition.

For the sound installation VALIE EXPORT uses the song Oh Lord, Don’t Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me by the African-American jazz musician Charles Mingus. He wrote the song in 1961, during one of the high points of the Cold War. The song is both a prayer and a howl and unmistakably expresses the real fear of nuclear war. EXPORT updates the song by adding the sounds of organ pipes, which are less reminiscent of peace-making sacred sounding bodies, but rather of death and doom-bringing projectiles. They were played like flutes and drums during the recording.

?Parking garage / Kreuzgasse Street

As an artist and philosopher, Nazario Zambaldi focuses on the concept of peace developed by Nicholas of Cusa in 1453 in De pace fidei. Zambaldi concentrates on the Coincidentia oppositorum and interprets it in a performative and illustrative way by daring to “square the circle” and providing us with images of an active work on peace that never leads completely to the goal. Peace is thus a process that must never be lost sight of

Performance: 21.12.23 – 18:00

?University of Brixen

In 1991, David Černý and his friends painted a tank with pink paint in a night and fog action. The tank had been standing on Kinsky Square in Prague since 1961 as a monument to the Soviet World War General Ivan Konev. The new colour scheme sparked a lively debate about the history of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the Prague Spring by the Soviet Army. In Brixen, a part of a tank is exhibited, which seems to disappear into the ground. What if all the tanks onearth were pink and sank into the ground?

Thank you for the support: Fercam Logistics & Transport

?Brixen Tourism

During an artist-in-residency in South Tyrol, the Croatian artist Nemanja Cvijanović dealt with the language border between the provinces of Trento and Bolzano. He focused on the Gampen Pass road, which was built during the fascist era. At the top of the pass, he staged a photo with a person in traditional costume standing somewhat crookedly and holding aloft a sign that is significant not only for this place: “All united against walls and fences”. As a politically active artist, Cvijanović is aware that peaceful coexistence can only be achieved through solidarity, because borders always exclude and sooner or later lead to conflict.

?Via Croce

According to legend, the unusual deformation of olive wood is due to a reaction of the trees against violence: when Roman soldiers were looking for a suitable piece of wood for the cross of Jesus, this rumour apparently spread among the olive trees. They began to bend in all directions until no branch was straight and usable for a cross. The artist Valeria Stuflesser from Val Gardena visualises this legend by carving rifles and pistols out of olive wood – with crooked barrels and therefore useless.

Opening hours: Mon–Fri 10 AM–5 PM

?Hofburg Brixen

As a protest against the US involvement in the Vietnam War, Yoko Ono and John Lennon launched an international media campaign on 15 December 1969 by putting up posters in 12 major cities with the inscription “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It - Merry Christmas from John & Yoko” in 12 major cities.

To this day, Yoko Ono is committed to peace and understands the WAR IS OVER! campaign as a tiny seed that spread and covered the earth. In this spirit, she has been making the graphic available free of charge since December 2022 and calls on her fellow human beings to work for peace so that, like pebbles in the ocean, it can spread far and wide.

Opening hours: Mon–Sun 8 AM–7 PM

?Alter Friedhof/Old cemetery, between the cathedral and the parish church

Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Terzo Paradiso is proposed as a fusion of the first and second paradises, a dialectical relationship between the natural and the artificial state, a search for the balanced combination of art/technology and nature, a sign of the beginning of a new phase of humanity. The symbol of this utopian ‘garden’ in which men take care of the planet and human society is the sign of infinity that sees its meeting point transformed into a central circle, the finite, of which we are all the authors. Take a wish stone and help build the Terzo Paradiso by placing your stone on the symbol!

Opening hours: Mon–Sun 8 AM–7 PM

Thanks to Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Rebirth-day Terzo Paradiso, Francesco Saverio, Teruzzi coordinator Ambasciatori Progetto, Rebirth/Terzo Paradiso. In collaboration with Nazario Zambaldi.

?Alter Friedhof/Old cemetery, between the cathedral and the parish church

With one of his last works, a commission for the Kiwanis Club Bruneck, Martin Rainer puts the central message of peace of Christianity into the picture, namely “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men of his good pleasure” (Luke 2,14). The birth of Christ in the centre of the motif is surrounded by a circle of people holding hands in a greeting of peace. The five persons represent the five continents. 194 copies of the Star of Peace were produced to symbolise the 193 member states of the United Nations and the Vatican City State.

Opening hours: Mon–Fri 8 AM–1 PM/2 PM–7 PM | Sat 8 AM–1 PM

?Peer Apotheke/ Farmacy

Brixen-based artist Karolina Gacke uses plates she has collected from various places around the world to raise our awareness of the problems of living together. In doing so, she also provides a metaphor for possible healing. For the artist, the broken pieces represent the boundaries and conflicts between people and nations. Using the intricate Japanese Kintsugi technique, she “repairs” the broken pieces by not concealing them but revealing them and turning them into something new – “from a shard to peace”, as the artist says.

?Raiffeisenkasse Brixen

The proverb about the grass in the neighbour’s garden always being greener than one’s own is emblematic of envy and covetousness. For theBrixen artist Maria Walcher, it is precisely this human trait that triggers most conflicts, which often start small and can take on tragic proportions. With Nachbars Garten ist immer grüner (The neighbour’s garden is always greener), the artist creates an installation in which the colour green is bundled in an intensive way. Starting from the shop window of a business premises, the green colour also spreads to the adjacent alley.

?Stadelgasse Street 6

How to Disappear is an antiwar film and looks for possibilities of peace in the mostunlikely place, namely in an online war game. The 21-minute film is a tribute to disobedience and desertion – both in the digital and physical realm of war. Shot in the war landscapes of the computer game Battlefield V, the hyper-real graphics become the backdrop for an essayistic narrative. The film revolves around the story of deserters – a part of human history that has hardly been illuminated so far. Performances and creative interventions explore the possibilities of the audiovisual entertainment machine.

Click here for the film: www.totalrefusal.com/home/how-to-disappear

Vorführungen/proiezioni/film screenings:

• 28.11.23 – 15:00–18:00
• 19.12.23 – 15:00–18:00
• 02.01.24 – 15:00–18:00

?ASTRA Brixen