Open Form Film, Space, Interaction, and the Tradition of Oskar Hansen

Description

Oskar Hansen's (1922-2005) theoretical concept of "open form" was developed in the context of international debates around late-modern architecture in the 1950s. Open form assumed that no artistic expression is complete until it has been appropriated by its users or beholders. In the following decades, the concept became a key principle of performance and film art, and led to the development of process-oriented and interdisciplinary artistic techniques. Hansen's concept revolutionized the traditional means of artistic communication. This publication examines the impact of Hansen's ideas within contemporary visual culture and the redefined role of the viewer since the 1960s. The book includes in-depth interviews with some of the most important protagonists of experimental art in Poland, who investigate the historical impact of the open form. Other contributions comment on the theory's influence on a younger generation of artists. Visual material by Hansen and the artists complete this extensive volume. Contributors James N Hutchinson, Anna Molska, Lukasz Ronduda, Pelin Tan, Felicity Scott, Lukasz Stanek, Jan Verwoert, Axel Wieder, Michal Wolinski, Florian Zeyfang; interviews with Wiktor Gutt, Grzegorz Kowalski, Pawel Kwiek, Anna Niesterowicz, Artur Zmijewski

Axel Wieder is a curator and writer and since 2018 director of Bergen Kunsthall. He has been director of Index-- the Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation in Stockholm (2014- 2018), where he organized solo exhibitions with Simone Forti, Stephen Willats, Sidesel Meineche Hansen, Willem de Rooij, and Anna Boghiguian and a collaborative project by John Skoog and Emanuel Roe hss.