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. The conversation takes Wiener’s seminars at the Düsseldorf Art Academy as its point of departure — seminars in which he explored cybernetics, automata theory, and questions of cognition — as well as the lecture notes, working documents, and ephemera presented in the exhibition. Wiener’s text “Why Art at All?” is also discussed; in it, Wiener explores the concept of “ergriffenheit” (captivation) in various forms — as an emotional engagement that he considers essential to the production and appreciation of art, as well as the detachment from it.
In the interview, Krebber recounts his personal encounters with Oswald Wiener as well as his connection to Graz. The conversation weaves together theoretical questions with personal memories and insights into the context in which these encounters took place.
Artists
Participating artists
Michael Krebber
Solo shows (selection): Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne (2025, 2023, 2017, 2015), Greene Naftali, New York (2024, 2021, 2018), Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare, Bolzano (2021), Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2019), Kunsthalle Bern (2017), Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2016), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2015), CAPC Musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux (2012), Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2008), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2008), Secession, Vienna (2005).
Group shows (selection): Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (2026), Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2025), Museion Bolzano, Bolzano (2025), University of Applied Arts Vienna, Die Angewandte, Vienna (2024), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022), Fondazione Prada, Venice (2021), Kunsthalle Basel (2021), Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main (2019), Reina Sofía, Madrid (2018), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017), Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2017), Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2015), Bienale de São Paulo (2012), MoMA PS1, New York (2011), Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2007).
Sandro Droschl
is founding director and curator of the institution HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark. From 2012 to 2020 he directed the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien. Since 2000 he worked as curator, then also as director for the Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz, besides as guest curator at other institutions. He curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and edited over 30 publications. Droschl made a study iregulare, “Body. Media. Art,” with art (Isabelle Graw, Free Class), philosophy, journalism and medicine at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, University of Vienna and London Guildhall University.
More contributions
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 Tobias Boos
Chainsaws, crypto, corruption.
Argentina between populism and the radical right
Video
Tobias Boos is political scientist at the University of Vienna who specializes in Latin America, populism, and economic developments, such as Argentina’s crisis since the 2000s and current right-wing populist movements like that led by Javier Milei.
Tobias Boos