Recommendations of what to see in the Vienna art scene this month by our local guide, Itai Margula. Discover even more on a private tour.
I.
Exhibition: GÜNTER BRUS Unrest after the Storm
Artist: Günter Brus
Venue: Belvedere 21 Haus
Dates: February 2nd to August 11th, 2018
Belvedere 21 holds a retrospective exhibition of the Austrian artist Günter Brus on the occasion of his 80 years anniversary. Curated by Harald Krejci, the comprehensive show sheds light on the different stages of his artistic career. If in his early work, Günter Brus used the body as the basis for the painterly process, in his later performances and actions the body served as the screen onto which he projected his critique of society. Probably his most recognizable work “Wiener Spaziergang” from 1965 - a high point also in the Wiener Aktionismus history as well – will always remain a landmark in the Viennese consciousness.
Photo: Ludwig Hoffenreich © Günter Brus
II.
Exhbition: From the inside to the outside
Artists: Carola Dertnig, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Martha Wilson, Kristin Oppenheim,
Markus Schinwald
Venue: Galerie Crone Wien
Dates: January 17th to March 3rd, 2018
Galerie Crone opened its second location in Vienna in the fall of 2015. The current show featuring prominent Austrian and international artists brings together artists who deal with the body as a means of expression, platform, or tool of their artistic creation. Categories such as age or gender are questioned as well as beauty ideals or social conventions. Martha Wilson’s work ‘Makeover: Melania (2017)’ for example, makes use of the digital image altering techniques, which not only allow her face to be transformed in that of Melania Trum within seconds, but also points out to the erasure of age through contemporary post production techniques.
Photo: Ashley Hans Scheirl © Ernst Herold 2016
III.
Exhibition: Guy Mees. The weather is quiet, cool and soft
Artists: Guy Mees
Venue: Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz
Dates: February 1st to April 29th, 2018
Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz dedicates its first exhibition of the year to Guy Mees (1935–2003), a leading figure of the Belgian avant-garde, in the first exhibition in Austria to focus exclusively on his work. A member of the “New Flemish School” he was in touch with an international network of artists affiliated with the neoavant-garde from Europe, Japan, and North and South America. The exhibition curated by Lilou Vidal features different phases in Mees’ career to shed light on his intuitive and conceptual approach from the beginning of the 1960s to his last works from the 2000s. The selected works allow an overview of his ideas of mutability, fragility, and the expansion of pictorial space into real space.
Photo: Exhibition View © Jorit Aust