During the entire talk held by Peter Friedl this Wednesday at the Alte Saline Hallein, sentences like " When I was 9 years old living in Upper Austria I was drawing ...", keep appearing, which gives the impression he has always been an artist. Even though he warned the audience by saying he presents himself through his exhibitions rather than presentations, the one he then gave was very interesting and engaging and allowed a deeper glimpse into the work, and also the mind of the artist.

He explained how he discovers the concepts behind his work by getting involved with his surroundings, the history of the places he travels to and all the stories that happened there. When

people, mainly taxi drivers, he says, ask him what he's doing, he simply answers "I paint animals", which is a bit of an understatement but as good a fleeting explanation as any. He in fact does a lot more than that, playing with spaces and the stories they contain, often venturing in the medium of film, a couple of them showing to the audience. They span a wide range, like a tiger fighting a stuffed snake in a museum, an idea born from finding a 19th century painting there of exactly that topic, or a man on a park bench reciting a poem in the suburbs of Johannesburg. Often present in his videos are children, looking, laughing, running around ...

The artist even says himself "When I'm invited som

ewhere, I often tell the people who want to work with me there that I much more want to work with their children. I really like doing this."

In that case, the Summer Academy can consider itself lucky that Peter Friedl agreed to teach a class for grownups. Maybe we should start thinking about asking him back to teach one for children next year. [mp]

This Tuesday, the supporters of the Summer Academy gathered in the inner courtyard of the Alte Saline Hallein, under a surprisingly blue sky for a change, to get a sneak preview on the works that will be presented to the public this Friday, the 5th of August, at our open day.

Before touring the different classes, looking at the works already hung there and talking to instructors and students, the awardees presented themselves, briefly illuminating their background and their work here at the Summer Academy. Annually about 70 grants are given out from different organisations and also private persons in order to make the Summer Academy even more open to all kinds of people. As one stipendiary put it "We are poor people in Serbia, it would have never been possible for me to come here otherwise. So thank you all very much." The thanks go right back as our stipends always enrich their courses and the whole of the academy greatly.

According to Hildegund Amanshauser, head of the Summer Academy, this year over 300 people from all over the globe applied for a grant, which on the one hand makes us very happy about all this interest and that the demographic of our students is shifting towards the young, on the other hand we wish we could give out even more stipends. We're always looking for new ways to gain support, so we'll see about next year.

For now, let's enjoy the fantastic art being made by the ones who are here now. [mp]

After starting his one-week tour de force at the Fortress Hohensalzburg on Monday, Jitish Kallat already presented himself in a lunchtalk this Tuesday. Completely leaving out his background, which might have been a bit disappointing fro the mainly western audience but showed once again why he had been chosen as a speaker for our global art forum, he presented several projects in his work, mainly one in Mumbai and one in Chicago.

It soon becomes apparent that he loves to play with materials and with making things look as-if, like in his work Public Notice 2 that spells out the speech Mahatma Ghandi held in 1930 before starting his Dandi march. The entire words of the speech are put into what seems like bones, but is actually steel and resin. "We studied all kinds of bones prior to making the letters", says the artist, "after a while the smell in the studio became unbearable."

This concept is also seen in his exhibition in the newly renovated Bh

au Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, where, poking fun at the long time it spent in disrepair, the artist put up what looks like bamboo scaffolding but is in fact intricately carved resin.

Another aspect of Mr. Kallat's work is the monumental. Asked about this, he says that "I always liked the huge, the oversized, even when he was still studying painting." He adds, smiling, "I enjoy making works so large that people have to step really close to see what it actually is."

Jitish Kallat's class Off Course will be presenting the outcome of a without doubts highly productive week at our open day on Friday, the 5th of August, starting at 2 pm in both the Fortress and the alte Saline in Hallein, and lasting until 6 pm, with an additional finissage at the fortress that will last from 6 to 9 pm. Hoe to see you there.   [mp]

The first instalment of our discussion series On attitudes to form and so on at the Künstlerhaus featured a long-standing key figure of the german gallery and art scene in general, Rolf Ricke. Hailing from Kassel, his interest for art was first piqued by the Documenta happening there in 1955. Never having had any formal training or interest in art, be it theoretical or practical, he simply slid into the scene by buying some prints there, in turn getting his friends inter

ested and then arranging for them to also buy some prints, seeing as there was no art gallery in the backwater town of Kassel at that time. He ventured deeper and deeper in until he finally was sent on a trip to New York to discover new interesting artists for a collector, simply asking at museums and finding his men by looking and walking around.

This trip fortified his position of alw

ays being a bit ahead, already showcasing american artists in Germany that weren't even popular in the US yet, it was indeed the starting point for what would make him one of the great figures of the scene. Pretty soon he and his colleagues started working towards an art fair for Germany that would bring together all that was avantgarde at the time. They picked Cologne as a location, thus the cologne art market was born. When Rolf Ricke reminisces about that time, the 60ies and to an extent also the 70ies, the artists seem a lot more wild and free, not "poor gits dictated by the market and all the money that's in it now", as he candidly puts it. Hearing him talk about the art of then and now, his way of working and dealing with the artists and the clientele, it comes as no surprise when he explains that he felt the need to retreat f

rom the art market as the 70ies hung on and the whole of germany made a big move towards conservativism, pulling the art scene and all it achieved in the last decade back with it. "There were even times when I didn't open my gallery for days out of frustration" he says, only to add that things of course got better in the mid-80ies so he could return to what he loves best.

And what about today? In 2004, he sold his collection he built up by always buying pieces of the artists he exhibited himself to help them, as it was his habit to immediately put on shows if artists he met and liked, no matter how unknown or even unpopular they might have been at that time. Then he closed his gallery so he could actually keep the profit in order to have something for his old age, he says with a smile made to convince  that that's still far off, and launches into a descrip

tion of his current project, supporting an art gallery in Berlin run by a cooperative of 24 artists. Asked if he would choose this path again, or what he would do if he were 30 today, he complains a tiny bit how there simply is too much money to be made in art today, and how this is bad for creativity. "But", he adds without hesitation, "for me this is the most beautiful profession I can think of. Th

ere's so much passion, tension, conflict, connection and thoroughgoingness, lots of great and tolerant people, you get to feel most incredible highs but also utmost defeat, just great moments ... this is why I won't stop."   [mp]

Today the doors of a private collectors home once again opened to us. Albeit the location itself differed vastly from the first one we visited, being a modern city apartment made from concrete with large full-glass fronts opposed to what was essentially a castle, the feeling behind the collection both places housed were similar.

His hands moving excitedly, the collector launched into a passionate recounting of the history of his conquests, saying it needs to be like "you visit and art fair and amongst thousands and thousands of works of art, it's that one, that particular one and no other. You just know it right away." He came to collecting art through a boyfriend some 30 years ago who was an art dealer, sucking him into this world for the first time. There never was a strategy or plan behind his collection, he simply buys what he likes. "To collect strategically, you have to be smart", he elaborates, "but most collectors are like drug addicts. There's nothing smart about a drug addict." His audience rewarded his sharp assessment with a round of laughter.

All through the tour of the spacious apartment graciously decorated with art, the collector shared little stories of how he came across the artworks, only hesitating every now and then when it came to the full name of the artist behind it. In the end, he spurred the students present on by telling them to not bend to some standards dictated and that there were always ways to get out there, because "there are always people looking for something, so why not your art?" He then promised a visit on our open day this Friday.

We'd like to once again give our thanks for the warm welcome and the wealth of information we all received this afternoon. [mp]