The dandy proposes no solutions, and denounces nothing as false
– since he makes no declarations of any kind. He simply plays a different game. The essay follows the traces of this masquerade
ball, moving among accounts of lives as they were lived, literary sketches and performances in the visual arts down to the
present day.
Book launch, talk, and exhibition on the occasion of the publication
of No Dandy, No Fun. Looking Good as Things Fall Apart (Sternberg Press, 2023) by Hans-Christian Dany and Valérie Knoll.
***
No
Dandy, No Fun. Looking Good as Things Fall Apart
Hans-Christian Dany and Valérie Knoll
Book launch,
talk, exhibition
Monday, May 8, 2023 at 6 pm
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Painting department, room
626, Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna, Austria
The painting department and Tiny Mutual Admiration
Societies invite you to a book launch, a talk, and an accompanying exhibition on the occasion of the publication of
No
Dandy, No Fun. Looking Good as Things Fall Apart written by Hans-Christian Dany and Valérie Knoll.
“As
the old order collapses, the dandy makes no claim to be leading an exemplary life. He does not defend property or privileges.
He finds conflicts over the distribution of goods distasteful. To the dandy, any kind of war, even a war of liberation, seems
an affair of the benighted, of those who don’t realise that the only point of putting on a uniform is to look good in it.
As an ascetic, he has always been in favour of less of everything, and opposed to any claims to novelty, which generally prove
to be little more than advertising for a new product. The dandy doesn’t ask how he wants to live; he lives, albeit with a
sad countenance. He proposes no solutions, and denounces nothing as false – since he makes no declarations of any kind. He
simply plays a different game.
The essay follows the traces of this masquerade ball, moving among accounts of lives
as they were lived, literary sketches and performances in the visual arts down to the present day. In a time of transition,
it sifts through tactics in order to find a way towards a self-determined future.”
The talk will
be held in German, the book is available both in German (May 2023) and English (September 2023). The exhibition at
Tiny
Mutual Admiration Societies (May 8 – May 28, 2023) is accessible during the opening hours of Angewandte.
The
book is published as a sequel to the exhibition
No
Dandy, No Fun (curated by Hans-Christian Dany and Valérie Knoll), which was on view at the Kunsthalle Bern from October
17, 2020 – February 14, 2021.
Sternberg Press, September 2023 (English)
11.5×18 cm, approx.
236 pages, 30 s/w ill., softcover
ISBN: 978-3-95679-516-9
Editors: Valérie Knoll and
Hannes Loichinger
Translation: Nathaniel McBride
Design: HIT
Co-publisher: Kunsthalle Bern
