Humans and Demons
Dissecting Evil in Evil Times : Steirischer Herbst '23
ed. by Ekaterina Degot, David Riff ; texts by Ilya Budraitskis, Anna Engelhardt, Mark Cinkevich …[et al.]

---

Author(s)

Ilya Budraitskis, Anna Engelhardt, Mark Cinkevich, Simona Forti, Franziska Füchsl, Orit Halpern, Dana Kavelina, S. Jonathon O’Donnell, Roman Osminkin, Peter Strasser

Editor(s)

Ekaterina Degot, David Riff

Publication

Berlin : Hatje Cantz, 2024

Scope

192 Pages, illustrated, 22 cm.

ISBN

9783775758284

---

Every year for a month, Steirischer Herbst, the oldest interdisciplinary festival of contemporary art in Europe, turns the city of Graz and the province of Styria in Austria into a parcours of installative and performative works. Since 1968, the festival has offered a platform for public debates, critical positions, and dialogues between the arts. Humans and Demons, the 56th edition of the festival, turned to character-based storytelling to address the demons surrounding, or inhabiting, humans in current and past crises. The crimes and human tragedies in Ukraine or Israel-Palestine have prompted us to point to monstrous, singular evils, yet we forget that evil lives among us. Even in our polarized world, there are vast moral gray zones, that authoritarian forces could weaponize. The artists in this 2023 edition of Steirischer Herbst, explored how people negotiate such gray zones, how to confront evil, and how ethical judgments can still be made. In a combination of essays and shorter literary texts, this festival reader further examines the return of radical evil.

---

Person as subject

Pavel Brăila, Mateja Bučar, Andrea Büttner, Zuleikha Chaudhari, Jasmina Cibic, Alice Creischer, Lucile Desamory, Anna Engelhardt and Mark Cinkevich, Vadim Fishkin, Andreas Fogarasi, Hollis Frampton, Cyprien Gaillard, Dani Gal, Pedro Gómez-Egaña, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Georg Haberler, Adrienn Hód / HODWORKS, Anton Kats / ILYICH, Dana Kavelina, Maria Loboda, Madame Nielsen, Eteri Nozadze, Lulu Obermayer, Michael Portnoy, Shimabuku, Michael Stevenson, Meg Stuart, Markus Sworcik and René Stiegler, Theater im Bahnhof, and Giacomo Veronesi, Julie Béna, Selin Davasse, Barbara Juch, Jessika and Jimmy Khazrik, Mikołaj Sobczak, and Stefanie Sourial

Keywords

activism , war , justice

Location

Cabinet 30 - 3: Kunst en Rechtspraak

Remarks

Includes notes