On the Dialectics of Pleasure and Ideology

6.12.19 / Video (in German)
Styria’s Weinstraße between the Nazis and Putin
Discussion and Finissage, 13.10.19, Schlossberghotel–Das Kunsthotel

The final discussion of Grand Hotel Abyssaddresses what is probably the most historically tainted of Styria’s pleasure regions. The area between Spielfeld and Eibiswald is more than a wine-growing district branded as the South Styrian Weinstraße after World War II. The area’s rolling hills were a favorite destination for Styrian Nazi functionaries. After the war the region was rife with spies as part of a local variety of the Cold War with neighboring Yugoslavia, and more recently it has made headlines with the refugee crisis and the Austrian Federal Foreign Minister’s wedding that was attended by Vladimir Putin in 2018. What does it mean that so many artists and writers have their second homes here? The final discussion illuminates these questions and many others over the course of an afternoon with wine and music.

Conceived and moderated by Herwig G. Höller
With Daniela Ebenbauer, Alois Gross, Kurt Jungwirth, Marko Radmilovič and Michael Zinganel
Special guest: Sarah Wiener
Music: Lothar Lässer