H13 2024: Katharina Ernst

H13 2024 Lower Austria Prize for Performance 

Katharina Ernst: metrics

Fri, 22.11.2024 

Doors open: 7pm

Performance: 7:15pm (first come, first serve)

• Moderation: Katharina Seidler, FM4
• Welcome: Frederike Sperling, Artistic Director Kunstraum Niederoesterreich
• Laudatory speech: Andreas Spiegl, Art Theory and Cultural Studies, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
• Award ceremony: Bernhard Heinreichsberger, Member of the Lower Austrian Parliament representing Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner
• Afterwards: Miyra Lim (DJ Set)

Exhibition: Sat, 23.11. – Sat, 07.12.2024

Artist Talk: Fri, 06.12.2024

Music as the rhythm, as measure, of the social? In metrics, this year’s H13 winner, the artist and musician Katharina Ernst, puts it to the test. At its core: the “metric” qualities of rhythm and dance, two artistic “measuring techniques” that Ernst, a drummer, is well versed in.

metrics is an immersive, percussive live soundscape in which the artist masterfully combines minimal music techniques with aesthetics of minimal art. In doing so, Ernst not only “measures” the aesthetic, but also the political potentials of her media. O-Ton H13-Jury 2024: “With these translation processes, between disciplines such as music, choreography, and architecture, the artist unravels the question of how an abstract composition could be a mirror or even a model for social togetherness.”

Ernst will perform metrics live for the first time at Kunstraum Niederoesterreich on Fri, 22.11., 7pm.The award ceremony will take place afterwards. FM4 journalist Katharina Seidler will host the event. The laudation will be held by art scientist Andreas Spiegl. The award will be presented by Bernhard Heinreichsberger, Member of the Lower Austrian Parliament representing Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner. The evening will be rounded off with a live DJ set by DJ Miyra Lim.

The performance is complemented with an exhibition, which will be on display at the Kunstraum from Sat, 23.11. to Sat, 07.12.2024. The H13 Artist talk (Katharina Ernst in conversation with Clémentine Proby) will take place on Fri, 06.12.2024, as part of the symposium Performance Besides Itself. Infra- and Parastructures of a Contemporary Liveness. More information about the symposium can be found here.

In 2024, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich awards the H13 Lower Austria Prize for Performance for the 18th time. With the intention to increase the international visibility of the local performance art scene and to make a lasting contribution to its promotion, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich awards this year’s H13 Prize again in cooperation with a renowned institution abroad: Mudam Luxembourg  – Musée d’Art moderne Grand-Duc Jean. In addition to the prize money and the presentation at the Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Katharina Ernst receives a multi-day, individual tutoring with Clémentine Proby, assistant curator at Mudam.

Independent artist and composer Katharina Ernst, born 1987 in Korneuburg bei Wien, studied abstract painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She started playing the drums at age nine with an early focus on polymetric, complex, and chaotic structures at the intersection of music, fine arts, and choreography. In recent years, she has realized collaborative projects together with Florentina Holzinger, the Black Page Orchestra, and Kate McIntosh.