WochenKlausur was formed in 1993, when Wolfgang Zinggl invited eight artists to work with him to solve a localized problem during the exhibition 11 Wochen in Klausur at the Secession (an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Vienna). During the span of that exhibition, the group developed a small but concrete measure to improve conditions for homeless people in Vienna by making medical care available to them through a mobile clinic. Since 1993, more than 600 homeless people per month have received free medical treatment at this clinic. An invitation from the Zurich Shedhalle followed in 1994. There, WochenKlausur worked with members of the government and social service groups to establish a hotel for drug-addicted women. Invitations from art institutions in Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the Netherlands followed. A total of twenty projects have been successfully conducted in recent years by teams that have involved a total of more than fifty artists.

WochenKlausur often faces questions about why our projects should be considered "art." In what many people understand to be traditional art, a great diversity of materials are formed and manipulated. Marble, canvas, pigments, and other materials have been points of departure for many kinds of creations, and through these media, the artist's imagination takes tangible shape. In activist art, sociopolitical relationships take the place of those material substances. As with marble or the painting surface, this substance is not infinitely malleable. In order to transform existing circumstances, the limits of variability must be recognized just as they must be in traditional art. This means that the hurdle-the envisioned transformation-must be carefully set: it must be realistic but also high enough that one can speak of a noticeable change. The goal is to design a recognizable and sensible change and then accomplish it. For example, an artist could take it upon herself to get a one-way traffic regulation for her street repealed because she recognizes the senselessness of the regulation. She would do everything possible to realize her plan, just as the Baroque master made an effort to realize his plan for a ceiling fresco in a cathedral regardless of whether he personally put his hand to the task or not.

We are often asked, "Why must a sociopolitical intervention be art? Can it not simply remain what it is?" We answer with our own questions. Why must Joseph Beuys's Fat Chair (1964) be art? Why are Duane Hanson's hyper-realistic polyester figures categorized as art while Madame Tussauds' wax figures are not? Why must a black square be art if it could just as well have been painted by a house painter as a color sample? Of course, a sociopolitical process can also have nothing to do with art. All around the world, public projects and initiatives are successfully completed without even the slightest consideration as art. For example, Gregor Hilvary, a priest who ran a shelter out of his own home in Hollabrunn, Austria, thought out an ingenious rotation system in order to offer more refugees beds than the law allowed, thus protecting them from deportation. He didn't receive any art professorship for his achievement. Why art, then?

First, with every successful project that is recognized as art, intervention in existing social circumstances increases in significance. The word "social" is then used more positively again. Just as art can make certain "revolting" materials suddenly more appealing, it can also decrease the nimbus of pathos and the presumption of a "dogooder syndrome" that often surrounds social efforts.

Second, the mythos of art can be useful when one attempts to realize an intervention in the political field. For example, in 1989 the artist Patricia L. A. Paris designed an installation to light a long, dark underground passage in Whitechapel, London. This meeting point for criminals was to be lit with four floodlights, brighter than the light of day; the plan won a design competition but was never executed. Shortly before her project was to be set up, lighting was installed in the passageway by the community itself, which also took the opportunity to clean up trash and pigeon corpses. Paris was infuriated. Her planned floodlights had lost their purpose, so she withdrew the project. And yet it had been her idea to improve the passageway's lighting. Her intention was realized, even though she had contributed nothing more than her plans. With the help of her art, the authorities had been compelled to take action. As an average citizen she might also have achieved the same thing, but she would have had to place an official request for better lighting, like many others before her, with forms, waiting lists, and fees. Months later she would have received a letter that informed her that the current circumstances made it impossible to fulfill her request.

Third, the media reports more about the dullest cultural events than about the most exciting social work. Through newspapers, radio, and television coverage, pressure can be put on decision makers. For instance, the news media helped WochenKlausur in its first project (the mobile medical clinic for the homeless). The moderator of a Viennese radio program called a member of city government live on the air and asked her why the government would not subsidize the salary of a doctor for the clinic, especially when such a measure was in the spirit of the Social Democrats' policies, and moreover, when WochenKlausur had already made all the arrangements necessary to set up the clinic.

Fourth, experience from the completed projects shows that in many fields an unorthodox approach opens doors and offers solutions that would not have been recognized in conventional modes of thinking, such as those of science, social work, or ecology. During a project to improve the sense of well-being in a Viennese secondary school classroom, WochenKlausur simply ignored the Austrian standards for school construction because they were completely inappropriate in meeting the pupils' needs. This is an advantage for artists, since experts in other fields must conform to the existing guidelines in order to avoid potential difficulties in their professions, even when the guidelines are clearly preposterous.

WochenKlausur does not claim that artists should necessarily have better ideas and problem-solving strategies than other groups. But there are many reasons why such interventions should be carried out by artists-as well as by all other people-if they are efficient. When obvious deficiencies in the social sphere await action, and when their solution does not require years of training or special experience, one has a responsibility to participate in finding solutions outside the framework of official directives and organizational structures. Clearly, when these activities are carried out by artists at the invitation of art institutions and are recognized by a community as art, then they are art.