Exhibition Tour
Louise Giovanelli: A Song of Ascents
Video
In her exhibition, A Song of Ascents, Louise Giovanelli addresses the quest for expanded consciousness, whether through spirituality or sensuality. Her paintings depict these experiences as emotional and sometimes eerie encounters characterized by intense colors, exaggerated gestures, and complex textures. In addition to existing works, the show features ten new pieces inspired by film scenes and photographs of English working-class clubs and theaters. Giovanelli transforms these places into hedonistic escape routes, accentuating them with details such as velvet curtains, sequined fabrics, and lighting effects. By focusing on the smallest elements, such as curls or the reflection of light on glass, she creates hyperrealistic visual worlds that combine classical painting techniques with fantastical motifs. Her works balance the familiar with the unfamiliar, reality with fantasy. This exhibition was created in cooperation with The Hepworth Wakefield, Museum Villa Stuck, and HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark.
Exhibition Page
Artists
Participating artists
Louise Giovanelli
Solo exhibitions (selection): Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2025), TANK Shanghai (2025), GRIMM, New York (2025, 2023, 2021, 2020), Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire (2024), He Art Museum, Foshan (2024), White Cube, Hong Kong (2024), Moon Grove, Manchester (2023), GRIMM, Amsterdam (2020), Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2022, 2016), White Cube Bermondsey, London (2022), Frutta Gallery, Rome (2019), Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2019), Workplace Foundation, Gateshead (2019), Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, Warrington (2019).
Group exhibitions (selection): AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (2025, 2024, 2021), Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas (2025, 2022), Hastings Contemporary, Hastings (2024), Nasjonal Museet, Oslo (2024), The Courtauld Gallery, London (2024), Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2024), Hill Art Foundation, New York (2023), FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2023), CICA, Vancouver (2023), White Cube, Seoul (2023), Kasmin, New York (2022), Marlborough, London (2022), Hayward Gallery, London (2021), CLEARING, New York (2020), Air de Paris, Romainville (2020), Pablos Birthday Gallery, New York (2019), Arcade Gallery, London (2019).
More contributions
Michael Krebber in conversation with Sandro Droschl
Video
As part of the exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O., Michael Krebber speaks with Sandro Droschl about his artistic practice and his engagement with the writings and conceptual models of Oswald Wiener.
Michael Krebber in conversation with Sandro Droschl A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Exhibition Tour
Slide show
The exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. (A.I.O.) explores questions of thought, perception, and subjectivity at the intersection of introspection, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence. Its point of departure is the work of the Austrian writer, cognitive psychologist, and cybernetician Oswald Wiener (1935 – 2021), whose genuine thinking since the 1950s critically navigated between these fields while systematically resisting institutional appropriation.
Slide Show A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. Dr. Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer
Susanne Wenger’s painting between Africa and Europe
Video
In her lecture, art historian and curator Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer examines Susanne Wenger’s work as a transcultural Gesamtkunstwerk that bridges European modernism and Yorùbá ritual practice, creating a new sacred aesthetic that merges art, ritual, and cultural boundaries.
Brigitte Borchardt Kathy Rae Huffman
FROM CYBERFEMINISM
UNTIL NOW
Video
Kathy Rae Huffman’s lecture traces the evolution of cyberfeminism since the 1990s: it connected women in the digital sphere, challenged existing power structures, and presented examples — from VNS Matrix to contemporary digital activism — that highlight critiques of platform corporations, AI cultures, and global inequalities.
Kathy Rae Huffman Xol Meissner
Concert
Video
New York-based artist Xol Meissner — the alter ego of composer Mauro Hertig — has transformed the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark into a hypnotic soundscape of extraordinary intensity with his haunting music, which oscillates between contemporary classical and avant-garde rock.
Xol Meissner Karin M. Schmidlechner
Styrian women during and after National Socialism
Video
In her research and in the volume Aus dem Blickfeld (Out of Sight), co-edited with Heimo Halbrainer, Karin Maria Schmidlechner demonstrates that the lived realities of Styrian women during the Nazi era and the postwar period were diverse and ambivalent. Hence, she broadens the scholarly discourse on their daily lives while simultaneously deconstructing common narratives such as that of the conformist woman or the so-called “rubble woman.”
Karin M. Schmidlechner Eva Ursprung
The Art of Surfacing
Slide show
With the exhibition The Art of Surfacing, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark presents the multifaceted work of Austrian artist, musician, and curator Eva Ursprung, who was awarded the Honorary Prize of the Province of Styria in 2024. Her cross-media, feminist, and socially critical approaches revolve around the element of water as a metaphor for change and political and ecological processes.
Slide show Eva Ursprung Susanne Wenger
Àdùnní Olórìṣà
Slide show
Susanne Wenger gilt als eine zentrale Künstlerin Österreichs nach 1945 und als frühe Wegbereiterin des Surrealismus. Ihr Œuvre, das Skulpturen, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Drucke und Batiken umfasst, überschreitet ästhetische Kategorien und verbindet Kunst, Spiritualität und Mythos.
Slide Show Susanne Wenger