Linda Bilda

Linda Bilda (b. 1963 in Vienna as Linda Czapka, d. 2019 in Vienna) was an artist, publisher, entrepreneur, exhibition organizer, performer, comic artist, activist, and teacher. Her artistic and political practice was embedded in numerous self-organized contexts in Vienna.

Influenced by the practice of the Situationist International, Bilda developed her artistic approach as a way of intervening in and undermining an art market based on commodification. Her aspiration to emancipate image production was preceded by a detailed examination of the structures that produce our reality and thus our world of imagery and ideas. The comic Die goldene Welt (The Golden World), presented in the exhibition at Kunsthaus Glarus, seeks to unravel how economic structures produce reality, where they become actual reality, and where fractures in this reality are found. The comic Die goldene Welt is based on the text “An Inquiry into the Causes and Nature of the Misery of the People” by J. P. Voyer, a post-Situationist French philosopher, which was published in 1976.

As editor of her comic project No Polit Comics or NO POLITCOMIX (1994–2005) and of other projects, often organized collectively, such as the magazine Artfan (1991–96, in collaboration with Ariane Müller), and Die weisse Blatt (1999–2005, in collaboration with Ulrike Müller, Kristina Haider, and Nora Hermann, among others), she always worked from the current situation outward, criticized sexist and fascist policies and their origins in the capitalist social order, and propagated a new form of coexistence.

Her sculptures and objects made from colored Plexiglas and LightGlass, a material developed by Bilda herself, a selection of which are on view at Kunsthaus Glarus, imagine scenes from a post-capitalist everyday (art) life. Linda Bilda never shied away from confronting the contradictions of an artistic-political practice. The aesthetic-political freedom that Bilda helped create through her work across media and cultural fields is all the more relevant today.

Linda Bilda achieved recognition as an artist through her comic drawings, as co-editor of several art magazines, and as an organizer of various exhibition spaces (ART CLUB and Galerie nächst der Fremdenpolizei) in Vienna. She was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the Vienna Secession. In 2011, Bilda received the outstanding artist award (fine arts) from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts, and Culture. In 2020/21, the Lentos Art Museum Linz presented a retrospective entitled Linda Bilda. Amor vincit omnia. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, including Capture Captures, Universitätsgalerie der Angewandten im Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna (2022); Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: 1989–2017, Kunsthalle Wien (2017); It’s The Political Economy, Stupid, Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki (CACT) (2012); Beziehungsarbeit—Kunst und Institution, Kunsthaus Wien (2011); Zukunft und Ende der goldenen Welt, Salzburger Kunstverein (2009); Schritte zur Flucht von der Arbeit zum Tun / Ex Argentina, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2004); and Linda Bilda for Ernst Schmidt jr., Secession, Vienna (2001).

In collaboration with Linda Bilda estate and basis wien – Documentation Centre for Contemporary Art, Vienna.

As part of the exhibition preparations, existing material for the comic Die goldene Welt was re-examined. A newly edited edition, developed in collaboration with the Linda Bilda estate, will be released in summer 2025.

The exhibition is accompanied by an interview-brochure featuring conversations between Helene Baur, Lucie Pia, Felix Zabel (Linda Bilda estate), and Melanie Ohnemus.