Statements IV.
Heinrich Dunst
Video
The video is available in German
The new online series provides all who are interested with exciting insights into topics and questions about the artistic positions of the exhibitions. For the Artist-Statement, the artists are each asked five short questions, whereby new insights into their work emerge and a current reference to conceptual art is established.
Heinrich Dunst is currently seen as the Austrian conceptual artist. His work focuses on the analysis of art and on testing its potential, with language and object in an open dialogue with one another. Important questions concerning the function and the conditions of art are raised, and they run up against reality and its challenges. These finely tuned works follow a conceptual approach that refers to the specific place where they are presented within an open interplay of images, language, and context. The concrete production and processing of art is at the center, and it is directly and humorously tested as to its relevance. Dunst sets art and its signs in motion by creating a dynamic referential media interplay of the visible and invisible, composed of image, film, and language — thereby proposing possible responses to the ambiguous signs of our fragmented present.
Artists
Participating artists
Heinrich Dunst
Among many others we allow us to highlight following shows: nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna (2019, 2013), House of Art, České Budějovice (2018), KOW, Berlin (2016, 2014), Kunstverein Schwaz (2015), Ludwig Forum, Aachen (2015), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2014) and Secession, Vienna (2014).
More contributions
Hans-Christian Dany: Oswald Wieners Überlegungen zum Spannungsfeld von Dandyism, Paranoia und KI, als frühe Ahnung der gegenwärtigen Probleme der großen Sprachmodelle mit Autophagie, Halluzinationen und dem Habsburg-Effekt
Video
As part of the exhibition A. I. O., Hans-Christian Dany approaches Oswald Wiener’s work from a contemporary perspective. Taking Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa, ein roman (The Improvement of Central Europe, a novel) as his starting point, he connects Wiener’s reflections on dandyism, paranoia, and artificial intelligence with today’s experiences with generative AI, and explores the unique resonances that Wiener’s speculative thinking continues to evoke in the present.
Exhibition Tour
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Video
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. explores the conditions of thinking, perception, and consciousness at the intersection of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and self-observation, bringing Oswald Wiener’s ideas into dialogue with artistic positions from different generations.
Michael Krebber talks to 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.
Nicola Cipani, Thomas Eder
On Oswald Wiener’s « die verbesserung von mitteleuropa, roman »
Video
As part of the accompanying program for the exhibition A. I. O., the two renowned Oswald Wiener experts Nicola Cipani and Thomas Eder will discuss Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa (1969).
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.
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.
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.
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.