Shop    Info   Menu  ︎   


Minister Kurz freut sich und begrüßt einen der Tausenden Schwarzarbeiter


In 2016 Austria celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the agreement with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which came into force on April 4, 1966. As it made the legal, voluntary migration of workers possible, the agreement led to the development of the phenomenon of “guest workers”. On the occasion of this anniversary a group exhibition was organised in frei_raum Q21 in Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier, which was intended as a gesture of gratitude to these men and women from the former SFR Yugoslavia.

Two men from the stretch of Triesterstraße where illegal workers (mostly men) stand, not unlike prostitutes, waiting for offers of low-paid work, were positioned strategically in front of both entrances where they awaited  the announced arrival of the Federal Minister for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, Sebastian Kurz.
The moments of his arrival were captured in a series of photographs. The title of this documentation “Minister Kurz Is Happy to Welcome One of Many Thousands of Illicit Workers“ attempts to describe these moments.



2016
Curated by: Bogomir Doringer
Space: Q21 MuseumsQuartier
Photo: Joanna Pianka/eSeL
Thanks to: Konstantin and Kristijan, Manuel Gras, Q21



Copyright: Milan Mijalkovic, 2020