Josef Strau: The Battles of Form against the Clouds and the Birds and the Fire

Josef Strau is one of the most unconventional artists of his generation. For many years, he lived and worked in Cologne, Mexico City, and New York before returning to Vienna. His work encompasses painting, sculpture, film, architecture and literature, and thus often defies clear categorization within any single medium.

At the heart of Strau’s artistic practice lies the question of what it actually means to him to produce art. Since the late 1980s, he has been developing forms of what he calls a “nonproductive attitude,” through which he avoids the notion of continuous artistic productivity and the cultural values inherent in the art world. For him, not only the act of creating, but also collecting, discarding, revisiting, writing, and exhibiting are transformed into independent artistic acts. In doing so, he experimentally explores a sort of metaphysics of self-generating, self-contained narratives of production — such as the “Hypostasizisms” he invented. “Hypostasis” refers to the manifestation or embodiment of an idea or spiritual principle in a concrete, material form — here, it describes the notion that thoughts can materialize through simple physical processes and experiments.

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Josef Strau, Die Nachahmung der Capriccio-Methode (*The Imitation of the Capriccio Method*)
Clouds of Paintings of Venetian Canaletto, Photo retouched with the iPad Pencil, ca. 2024 – 2025
Courtesy: der Künstler

Text

Text plays a particularly significant role in this context. Strau writes essays, notes, and literary texts, which he also combines with objects, images, lamps, and architectural structures. His installations function less as self-contained compositions than as open structures in which different times, thoughts, and creative phases overlap. Biographical observations, literary references, and everyday objects interconnect, creating narrative spaces that may elude unambiguous interpretations and the constraints of categorization.

Strau’s unconventional fusion of literature and visual art, stands in a long tradition that can be linked to artists such as Marcel Broodthaers and Stéphane Mallarmé. At the same time, he develops his own individual form of artistic authorship: a practice in which writing, thinking, producing, and not producing all become equal parts of the work.

For the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Josef Strau is once again developing a major institutional solo project after a long hiatus. The Battles of Form against the Clouds and the Birds and the Fire is created specifically for the Graz exhibition spaces and takes as its starting point the artist’s renewed encounter with existing works, literary references, and new pieces. An artist’s book featuring texts by Strau, written in tandem with the preparation of the exhibition, will be published at the opening.

Curated by Jan Tappe

Artists

Participating artists

Solo exhibitions (selection): dépendance, Brussels (2024, 2016), Diana*, Mailand (2024), Layr, Vienna (2023), House of Gaga, Mexico-City (2023, 2016, 2013), Greene Naftali, New York (2022, 2018, 2012, 2006), Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (2021), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2020), Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich (2020, 2010), House of Gaga, Los Angeles (2019), Künstlerhaus Bremen (2017), Secession, Vienna (2015), The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago (2014), MUDAM, Luxembourg (2009), Malmö Konsthall (2008), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008).

Group exhibitions (selection): Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2026), Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago (2026), Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2022), Busan Biennale, South Korea (2020), Kunsthalle Bern (2017), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016), Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris (2016), Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2016), Kunsthaus Hamburg (2016), Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna (2015), Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (2014), Liverpool Biennial (2014), Arnolfini, Bristol (2014), Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2013), MoMA PS1, New York (2010).