Stuffed Birds & More...

Autumn leaves lie scattered across the narrow and dismal alleys. Misty cold air rubs against the skin. As nature slowly prepares to take its winter sleep, thriving galleries exhibit their riches. Lush, radiant artifacts of pomp glitter on gallery walls, rekindling our spirit.

 

Antal, Pasqualini, Winkler

Razzle-dazzle, kinky footwear, and refined leather seasoned with contemporary art is iconoclastic and revolutionary from a prestigious shoe store like SHU. SHU is a homely niche not only for handcrafts, but also for young independent artists. Its chiseled façade and illuminated interior lures art lovers and shoe fetishists alike. The store’s interior emanates a holistic-like tranquility, which is ideal for contemplation and even meditation. Recently, three exceptional artists: Regina Antal, Andreas Pasqualini, and Mathias Winkler have staged their creations inside this voluminous space.

Antal’s grandiose, vibrant oil paintings and crystal resin statuettes lull visitors into a pensive state, impertinently posing existentialistic questions. The visitors are confronted with images of life and death, suggesting that these states overlap. Strangely, the sense of death is liberating and pacifying. Antal’s exuberant shades of green are translucent, and appear intangible. Antal is infatuated with notions of transparency, using luminescent colors, also featured in her latest experimental works that depict of stuffed birds embedded in crystal resin. Antal’s images are ambivalent seeming somber and yet sublime. Antal leaves an open ending to all of her artistic tales, and does not pre-determine the subject matter.

Similarly, Pasqualini’s recent work displays technical refinement as well as controversy, concentrating on specific social groups like locals from a small Italian village and European party-life.

Latex, putrid smells, adhesives, and patterns distinguish Winkler’s art. He incorporates textiles into his crafts by using second hand clothing that tell tails of their previous owners. For this reason his creations are nostalgic.

SHU

7., Neubaugasse 34

Brigitte Fiala

Tue. – Fri. 12:00 –19:00, Sat., 12:00 – 17:00

(01) 523 1449

 

Between Art and Design

Will Alsop and Robert Majkut

One is immediately struck by Design Palais Vienna’s majestic grandeur and barren white walls. Raw elegance permeates the rooms at first sight until we are overwhelmed by the powerful artifacts on display. Majkut’s conspicuous dinner table rules the gallery’s interior. Its lustrous surface is animated with robust axels. Majkuts’s and Alsop’s works exceeds artistic definition.

The objects showcased shed light on the complexity of the creative process of art. These artists’ works are sensitive to time and space. The permeability of the past, present, and future marks their aestheticism. It is splendid to see how the independent entities of their work blend as inseparable disciplines.

Design Palais Vienna

Lukas Feichtner

1., Singerstrasse 16

Tue. – Fri., 10:00 – 18:00, Sat., 10:00 – 16:00

(01) 513 9694

 

Franz Zobl: Dichter Blick Bilder 1986 – 1991

Fichte Gallery is currently the home of Franz Zobl’s last exhibition. Its plain interior does not leave a lasting impression, however the Art Deco reclining chairs that once embellished the Frankfurt airport in the 1960s are atonement for all imperfections.

Zobl was probably a storyteller and dramatist before he even knew it. He stages ordinary people, nonchalantly, neglecting to attribute his characters any roles, class, or race. His personas are aloof and grey. They are motionless and passive without any aspirations or goals. They are mere protagonists of a simple or convoluted story that is waiting to be composed. Zobl propels the visitors to become active participants in his art making, thereby enriching the collective consciousness.

The paintings look like photographs, which may be cut, pasted, and relocated. Zobl’s characters have been cast into an unknown realm, they do not know why they are there, where they come from, or where they are heading, but in spite of all of this, they resonate bold dignity and pride. Zobl only sets the mood; the rest is up to his audience to complete.

Gallery Fichtegass

Constantin Alexander Scullenburg

1., Fichtegasse 1

Tue. – Fri., 10:00 – 16:00

(01) 512  6616