Reflections on Closeness
and Intimacy 
Maria Schneider 

With the STAGES series, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark offers a stage to young artists from Graz and Styria and thus an opportunity to present their work. As a rule, a small exhibition remains on view for several days afterwards, allowing a wider audience to see it. This recurring format, which takes place against the backdrop of the current exhibitions in the building, aims to offer a platform for new positions, experiments, and reflections. In the context of the exhibitions by Diego Bianchi and Celina Eceiza, Maria Schneider (*1992 Graz, lives in Graz) explores physicality and the extent to which it presupposes intimacy, closeness and different forms of perception.

Schneider’s practice encompasses installation, sculpture, film, photography, collage, graphic art, painting, and sound. The series of photographs shown alongside a video work for this edition of STAGES is exemplary of her practice, in which she explores the psyche and how it is reflected in physicality. She creates intimate detailed studies of body parts, faces, skin, and skin folds, as well as two clasped hands, a face resting on its own arm, and a back wearing a mask. Like Bianchi and Eceiza, Schneider reflects on human existence, but also on dehumanization: Examples include a work in which a mask appears on a body, and her film Dehumanisation (2021 / 2022). At the same time, she encourages viewers to reflect on their own worlds of thought, and invites them to look closely at the surface of bodyskin, as if under a magnifying glass.

On the opening night, Maria Schneider will talk about her practice and her specific intervention for STAGES. Reflections on Closeness and Intimacy will be on view at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark until Sunday, November 23.