[artist profile]
Oliver Ressler (Knittelfeld, 1970) is an Austrian artist based in Vienna. He is an artist and filmmaker who produces installations, projects in the public space, and films on issues such as economics, democracy, global warming, forms of resistance and social alternatives. Over the years, he collaborated with the artists Zanny Begg (Sydney), Ines Doujak (Vienna), Martin Krenn (Vienna), Carlos Motta (New York), Gregory Sholette (New York), David Thorne (Los Angeles) and the political scientist Dario Azzellini (Berlin/New York).
Ressler has had almost one hundred solo exhibitions, among them in Berkeley Art Museum, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid; Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Egypt; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk; Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo – CAAC, Seville; Foundation Fabbrica Del Cioccolato, Torre-Blenio (CH); MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; and SALT Galata, Istanbul, Kunst Haus, Vienna; Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Copenhagen; ar/ge kunst Bolzano; Centre of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; Museum Hartberg (A). In 2020 is scheduled a solo show at Kunsthus Graz. Ressler has participated in more than 300 group exhibitions, including Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; MASSMoCA, North Adams, USA; Centre Pompidou, Paris, BOZAR, Brussels, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah and at the biennials in Seville (2006), Moscow (2007), Taipei (2008), Lyon (2009), Gyumri (2012), Venice (2013), Athens (2013, 2015), Quebec (2014), documenta 14 (2017), Warsaw (2019). He is the director of 28 films. A retrospective of his films took place at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève in 2013.
He is the co-curator of an exhibition cycle on the financial crisis, It’s the Political Economy, Stupid, and project leader of the research project Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom at Secession in Vienna in 2014. Ressler is the first price winner of the newly established Prix Thun for Art and Ethics Award in 2016. Ressler’s works are present in many public and private collections, including Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven; EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens; Erste Collection Vienna; Pori Art Museum Finland; Neue Galerie Graz; ZKM Karlsruhe; Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz; n.b.k. – Neuer Berliner Kunstverein; CAAC – Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo Seville; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Madrid; 21er Haus Museum of Contemporary Art Vienna.
[selected works]
Dog Days Bite Back, installation view at Belvedere 21, photo by Johannes Stoll / Belvedere, Vienna, 2024
Defending the Future, installation view at The Gallery Apart, 2023
Oliver Ressler, “What Is Democracy?”, 8-channel video installation, 2009 (Installation view: “Antidoron – The EMST Collection”, Documenta 14, Kassel, 2017; photo: O. Ressler)
Oliver Ressler,
“New Model Army”, stand-in activists, 2016; “Proprietatea e furt“/“Property Is Theft”, wall text, 1400 x 146 cm, 2016
Oliver Ressler, “Emergency Turned Upside-Down”, floor piece, 2016 (Installation view: “Who Throws Whom Overboard?”, SALT Galata, Istanbul, 2016; photo: O. Ressler)
Oliver Ressler, “Failed Investments”, billboard, 2015 (Installation view: 7th Grolsch ArtBoom Festival, Krakow, 2015; photo: Michał Ramus)
Oliver Ressler, “Take The Square”, 3-channel video installation, 2012 (Installation view: “Playgrounds”, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2014)
Oliver Ressler, “For A Completely Different Climate”, 3-channel slide installation with sound, 2008 (Installation view: “We will beg for nothing, we will ask for nothing. We will take, we will occupy”, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo – CAAC, Seville, 2015; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Fly Democracy”, video installation with leaflets, 2007 (Installation view: “Catastrophe Bonds”, Bush Art Center Galleries, St. Norbert College, De Pere, USA, 2018; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Elections are a Con”, wall text, 2011 (Installation view: Galerija PM, Zagreb; photo: Elvis Krstulović) 
Oliver Ressler, “Failed Investments”, billboard, 2015 (Installation view: 7th Grolsch ArtBoom Festival, Krakow, 2015; photo: Michał Ramus) 
Oliver Ressler, “New Model Army”, stand-in activists, 2016/2017; “Everything’s coming together while everything’s falling apart”, 4-channel video installation, 2016-2018 (Installation view: “How to Occupy a Shipwreck”, Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna, 2018; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “When The Levee Breaks”, foil on mirror, 213 x 150cm, 2018; “New Model Army”, stand-in activist, 2017 (Installation view: “How to Occupy a Shipwreck”, Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna, 2018; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Leave It in the Ground“, 3 LED lightboxes, 84,1 x 59,4 cm, 2014 (Installation view: “The Extractive Machine, Neo-colonialisms and environmental resources”, PAV Parco Arte Vivente, Torino, 2017; photo: courtesy PAV Parco Arte Vivente) 
Oliver Ressler, “We Have a Situation Here”, digital print, 2011; “Don’t purchase a better world, fight for a better world”, digital print, 2008; “The Visible and the Invisible”, digital prints, 2014 (Installation view: “The Plundering”, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, 2014; photo: Reinhard Haider) 
Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler, “Occupy, Resist, Produce”, 3-channel video installation, 2014-2015 (Installation view: “Property is Theft”, MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “New Model Army”, stand-in activists, 2016; “Proprietatea e furt“/“Property Is Theft”, wall text, 1400 x 146 cm, 2016, (Installation view: “Property is Theft”, MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “There is not a flag”, banner, 900 x 340 cm, 2015 (Installation view: “Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom”, MOCAK – Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow; photo: Rafał Sosin) 
Oliver Ressler, “The economy is wounded: let it die!”, digital print, 2016 (Installation view: “Who Throws Whom Overboard?”, SALT Galata, Istanbul, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Stranded”, digital print, 2015 (Installation view: “Who Throws Whom Overboard?”, SALT Galata, Istanbul, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Emergency Turned Upside-Down”, floor piece, 2016 (Installation view: “Who Throws Whom Overboard?”, SALT Galata, Istanbul, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Too Big to Fail“, 2011/2016 (billboards in the framework of “Who Throws Whom Overboard?”, SALT Galata, Istanbul, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Take The Square”, 3-channel video installation, 2012 (Installation view: “Playgrounds”, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2014) 
Oliver Ressler, “Emergency Turned Upside-Down”, film, 2016; Oliver Ressler, “There Is Not A Flag”, LED lightbox, 180 x 87 cm, 2016 (Installation view: “Transnational Capitalism Examined: Border as Method”, The Gallery Apart, Rome, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “There Is Not A Flag”, LED lightbox, 180 x 87 cm, 2016 (Installation view: “Transnational Capitalism Examined: Border as Method”, The Gallery Apart, Rome, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “Failed Investments”, digital prints, 120 x 60 cm, 2015; “Robbery”, film, 2012; “Stranded”, digital prints, 2015; “Emergency Turned Upside-Down”, floor piece, 2016 (Installation view: “Transnational Capitalism Examined: Border as Method”, The Gallery Apart, Rome, 2016; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “What Is Democracy?”, 8-channel video installation, 2009 (Installation view: “Antidoron – The EMST Collection”, Documenta 14, Kassel, 2017; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler, “What Is Democracy?”, 8-channel video installation, 2009 (Installation view: “Antidoron – The EMST Collection”, Documenta 14, Kassel, 2017; photo: O. Ressler) 
Oliver Ressler & Zanny Begg: “The Bull Laid Bear”, film, 2012 (Installation view: “Political Imaginaries: Making the World Anew”, Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, 2014; photo: O. Ressler)
