Vanessa Joan Müller, Evelyn Plaschg
Conversation
Video
Accompanying Evelyn Plaschg’s exhibition Viscous City, Revolver Publishing is releasing a publication of the same name featuring new texts by Hamburg art historian and curator Vanessa Joan Müller and New York art critic and curator Kari Rittenbach (MOMA PS1). This book presentation and discussion between Sandro Droschl, Vanessa Joan Müller, and Evelyn Plaschg will focus on Müller’s essay Ansichten des Unbestimmten (Views of the Indefinite), in which she analyzes Plaschg’s painting as a reflection on the interrelationships between body, pictorial space, and urban experience. In her essay, Müller shows how strongly Plaschg’s painting oscillates between abstraction and figuration. This creates a unique visual grammar reminiscent of the structure of cinematic fragmentation: close-ups, blurring, rhythm, and editing — elements that are transformed into a poetic pause in painting. Müller’s text moves as an atmospheric counterpart to this painterly practice: clearly analytical, but at the same time carried by a poetic sensitivity for the ambivalent and the in-between. The evening is intended as an invitation to an in-depth, discursive exchange about image, text, and perception beyond the exhibition space.
Exhibition Page
Artists
Participating artists
Evelyn Plaschg
Solo exhibitions (selection): Paulina Caspari, Munich (2024), Scherben, Berlin (2024), Layr, Vienna (2023), Galerie Kirchgasse, Steckborn (2021), Canopy, Malmoe (2021), Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2021), Pina, Vienna (2020), Parallel Vienna, Vienna (2019), Zeller van Almsick, Vienna (2017).
Group exhibitions (selection): Esther II, New York (2025), Leopold Museum, Vienna (2024), Hard Scent Salon, Copenhagen (2024), Belvedere 21, Vienna (2023), The Grand Chelsea, New York (2023), Kunstverein Eisenstadt (2022), Basel Social Club, Basel (2022), Kunstverein Bremerhaven (2022), Smolka Contemporary, Vienna (2021), Belvedere 21, Vienna (2019), Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg (2018), Acappella, Naples (2018), Forum Stadtpark, Graz (2017), Glovebox, Auckland (2016), ENSBA, Paris (2016), Neuer Kunstverein, Vienna (2016), MUMOK, Vienna (2015).
Vanessa Joan Müller
Vanessa Joan Müller is a Vienna-based curator and writer, and holds a PhD in Art History. Her practice often reflects on institutional typologies, the legacies of institutional critique, and the role of contemporary art in shaping society. From 2013 to 2020, Müller was head of Dramaturgy and curator at Kunsthalle Wien. Beforehand, she was director of Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2006−2011) and head of research at the European Kunsthalle in Cologne (2005÷2006). She has worked for and curated exhibitions at the Leopold Museum, the Gallery of the University of Applied Arts, the 55th October Salon in Belgrade and Frankfurter Kunstverein. In 2017 she curated the Pavilion of the Republic of Albania at the 55th Venice Biennale.
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
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