Rainer Ganahl was accidentally born in Austria in 1967 and has been living in New York since 1990 as Austrian and American citizen. His artistic work often deals with educational, political, ecological and linguistic issues. He studies foreign languages (11 so far), reads books with people (Marx, Lenin, Mao, Freud, Foucault, etc.) and rides bicycles in a crazy manner. He dreams frequently, loves his girlfriend Romana and wants to study and work in China. He uses and abuses all media without any preference, including video, ceramics, broken hearts, money, paintings, misspellings and accidents. His recent activities include one person shows at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in 2007 and at the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna in 2005. He exhibited his work at the Seville 2006, Bucharest 2006, Moscow 2007, and Venice ( 1999, 2005, 2007) biennials as well as in the exhibition “Image Wars: Contesting Images of Political Conflict” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, ISP Show, New York in 2006. He permanently exhibits at his web site: http://www.ganahl.info
In Memoriam - Bicycling Ýstanbul’s Topography of Murders of Journalists
For Ýstanbul I will create the bicycle video “In Memoriam - Bicycling Ýstanbul’s Topography of Murders of Journalists”, a ride with flowers between locations where journalists have been murdered in recent decades. Hrant Dink, prominent editor of the Armenian-Turkish-language weekly Agos newspaper was killed in January 2007 and is part of that list. The name and date of the murders with a possible murder reason (‘political’, ‘unknown’, etc.) will be attached to a flower and left behind. I will film directly while riding without holding the handlebar ignoring traffic rules. On view is also the painting “CNN.COM: 15 injured by Turkish bicycle bomb, May 12, 2007”, pointing to yet another use of the bicycle. Other works dealing with loss and security are entitled “Don't steal my Mercedes-Benz bicycle”, and “Don’t steal my PUMA bicycle”, (bikes, and various chains made of bronze, porcelain and kryptonite steal). Next to some other videos with the title “The Apprentice in the Sun - Bicycling Bucharest”, there will be a wall installation with the same title as well as a handlebar, pedals, saddle, and chains made of porcelain. The bicycle not only had been an important modernist machine leading towards mass mobilization and motorization but is now again a utopian vehicle demanding for cleaner and healthier ways of mobilization and transportation.
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