Oswald Wiener

In addition to his work as a writer and cyberneticist, Oswald Wiener was also active as a bar owner and musician. His artistic stance is multifaceted and difficult to pin down. While he initially participated in readings and happenings as part of the Vienna Group, he later became interested in the extremes of nature and climate — and thus in shifting, expanding, and testing the boundaries of his own actions. The exhibition highlights these different facets of his work and places them in a broader context. It focuses on works influenced by his theoretical thinking and the accompanying questions he explored visually. In addition to extensive archival material on his writings, correspondence, and notes, the exhibition features drawings, watercolors, and musical compositions.

The drawings on display are often linked to Wiener’s ideas. In his series of watercolors depicting introspective imaginary worlds titled Würfelabwicklung (Cube Net), he depicts various folds of cubes, which he unfolds and numbers. In these works, he explores central themes such as ​“presence,” the ​“wandering of the gaze,” as well as questions of vision, movement, and the relationship between space and surface. The motif of the cube as an experiment also appears in custom-made objects and other materials that Wiener recorded in his notes or used for lectures and exercises, among other things. Related motifs such as knots further point to his exploration of concepts and the process of thinking.

In other drawings, Wiener depicts himself and his own nose. These works were created following eye surgery at Vienna General Hospital in 2009 and can be interpreted within the context of his explorations of cognition and introspection. The perception of one’s own body appears shifted and concentrated on the sense of smell or, more specifically, on the nose as an organ of perception. Through its isolated depiction and examination from shifting perspectives, the nose transforms from an anatomical detail into a site of introspection.

The exhibition also features a series of drawings in which Oswald Wiener depicts Günter Brus as a bird. The initial sketch of Günter Brus as a bird was created for the art magazine Schastrommel 4, published in 1970, which was edited by Brus and served as the official publication of the ​“Austrian Government-in-Exile.” With a confident yet minimalist line, Wiener portrays his friend in profile — with a beak, long eyelashes, and feathers. Through the repeated depiction of the similarly oriented profile with slight variations, the drawing process appears as an organic thought process that turns inner processes outward.

Wiener’s artistic practice should be viewed as a distinct section of the exhibition that is, at the same time, closely intertwined with his theoretical work, making it difficult to consider art and thought independently of one another. Wiener’s diverse body of work is presented here in new contexts that — not least through its juxtaposition with works by other artists from different generations — open up new perspectives.

Various sketches and materials, 1992 – 1993
Pencil drawings, ballpoint pen drawings

Handwritten notes and sketches on the topic ​„Was soll Selbstbeobachtung? Mürz 2010“ (What’s the point of self-reflection? Mürz 2010), 2010

All works Courtesy Ingrid Wiener, Kapfenstein

Ungefähre Anlage von Günter Brus als Vogel, n.d., 1970s
Pencil on paper
21 × 29,7 cm
Courtesy: Archiv Brus, Graz