Walk & Talk

For the solo exhibitions of Caroline Mesquita and Leon Höllhumer, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark is once again offering tours that give visitors an opportunity to engage with the current exhibition in an informative yet informal manner. This is not a traditional guided tour; rather, it is a joint exhibition visit where visitors can engage in a relaxed and accessible dialogue and ask targeted questions if they are interested in learning more.

With Caroline Mesquita​’s Verdet Bath and Leon Höllhumer​’s The Feast, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark opens two exhibitions by artists who not only work primarily with sculpture and film, but who are also particularly interested in scenic storytelling.

In both exhibitions, individual works are placed in relation to each other to develop narratives which go beyond simple storytelling. Caroline Mesquita is less interested in depicting individuals than in portraying whole communities, and in exploring how certain situations and experiences of social interaction are created through mutual exchange. While Mesquita uses the setting of a public swimming pool to transform her brass and copper figures into a theatrical tableau, Höllhumer has created a series of (video) installations that weave together an episodic sequence of stories. Juxtaposing morbid imagery with more pleasurable scenes, Höllhumer’s piece culminates in an immersive parcours installation, offering a complex and ambivalent narrative experience. Despite the two artists’ differences in content, production and tone, both exhibitions are highly immersive in design, and unexpectedly similar in their ability to captivate the viewer.