The group exhibition Backyard Economy, which is the result of a seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, presents contemporary artistic explorations of the forms of social reproduction, which are fundamental for the economy of global capitalism but remain largely invisible within it.

The title quotes two super-8-films by Martha Rosler from 1974, Backyard Economy I and Backyard Economy II (Diane Germaine mowing), in which the artist draws an intimate connection between reproductive and artistic labor. The exhibition takes such early Marxist-feminist perspectives and practices of institutional critique as its point of departure and relates them to contemporary conditions. The works on display deal with motifs of the peripheral and of exclusion, thereby exploring dynamics that arise between forms of representation, the engagement within the conditions of (aesthetic) production, and the effects of institutionalization. They address interactions of valorization and devaluation, exploitation and profit both inside and outside the art field. By questioning binary constructions, gender-specific codifications, and colonial imprints at work in reproductive labor, value production, and property relations, the artistic works devote themselves to tackling quite persistent clichés.

Invited by Jenni Tischer (Art and Knowledge Transfer) and Stefanie Kitzberger (Collection and Archive), sponsored by the Danubian Bank