In this section you find an overview of our current, upcoming and past exhibitions.
Current
BIRGIT REINER “CUSHIONED CLOUDS”
14.1. – 9.4.2022
“As if Sigmund Freud and Franz West were talking to each other” – the painter Birgit Reiner on mythology, aesthetics and symbolism today.
In her work, Reiner analyzes the two great Viennese personalities of the 20th century – Sigmund Freud and Franz West. Even if the two could hardly be more different, Reiner is excited to work out the similarities in the two concepts and to interpret them in her works. With Reiner, mythology is given a pragmatic value in order to get out of one’s own fears and neuroses. Her symbols are tangible, real things. That goes as far as the portrait of a New York hotel chair with real mold stains, which is of course reminiscent of Franz West. “Especially today we can no longer deny religious mythology, as Freud did, or ridicule it, as we find it in West,” says Reiner, explaining her symbols of armchairs, couches, armchairs, canapées, chaise longues and, again and again, air mattresses. “Our cozy, homely world comes in a suffocating, ideal world design, sometimes in brocade and plush neoclassical, and in the style of the Venetian Renaissance, sometimes dissolvingly abstract, thrown back on its own chaos. So we are busy with ourselves and our navel gaze and the world burns around us. We submit to the dictatorship of leisure activities, chill, with the air mattress on an unsafe balance, relaxed adrenaline. And we relax even more if we ignore the global water shortage. ”This is how Birgit Reiner describes her work.
Birgit Reiner surprises with her installations of inflatable furniture, guest beds and air mattresses. The sprayed surfaces appear depending on the structure of the material, shiny chrome or velvety, fibrous soft. Reiner asks the visitors to carry the furniture around with them, screaming loudly, just like the people of the leisure and fun society carry their neuroses with them. This is very reminiscent of Franz West and his towed goods. But Reiner goes one step further. It describes the archetypal tension between people and furniture, between the need for stability and the fear of uncertainty – fear of death and fear of life. The figurative, the alienation of the object from its original meaning and elevation to a work of art, also makes Reiner’s social criticism clearer. Carrying around and displaying the brightly painted neuroses, the screams of the audience and the surprising color scheme and design language turns into a smug, sarcastic criticism of how we deal with our fears and celebrate them obscenely. Many a self-discovery course and some all too mythological dealing with ourselves become a farce.
“Reiner provokes because she digs and thinks more profoundly in her analyzes than most, and because her social criticism starts with a common sense that gives space and meaning to the inexplicable, mythology. Birgit Reiner is therefore like no other chronicler of our time, ”describes the gallery owner and curator Thomas Emmerling, the work. Reiner works with special materials such as nettle fabric and resins in order to bring out the classic compositions. “Her manual skills, the security of her lines and the constant striving to develop her own work make her one of the great discoveries of the last few years”. Birgit Reiner did her Master of Fine Arts at the University of London and then worked as an “assistant with degree” at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, with Siegfried Anzinger, Markus Lüpertz and Herbert Brandl, among others.
Download Exhibition Catalogue (pdf): Click here
Upcoming
PICTURES OF AN EXHIBITION – Oana Ionel, Alena Adamikova, Birgit Reiner, Cristina Gagiu, Armin Mühsam
21.4. – 25.6.2022
We present a collage from various private collections with works by Oana Ionel, Alena Adamikova, Birgit Reiner, Cristina Gagiu, Armin Mühsam and other renowned artists.
Bianca Turner “Back from 3022”
30.6. – 30.8.2022
The artist comes back from the year 3022 and presents us with famous Austrian personalities from her point of view.
Missed
MÁRIA ČOREJOVÁ „DRAWINGS … AND CONTENTS“
22.9.2021 – 9.1.2022
Maria Corejova, born in 1975 in Bratislava, is one of the well-established Slovak artists of the present. Her work was shown, for example, at the Venice Biennale for Architecture in 2012, she caused a sensation in 2012 with the STRABAG Art Prize and is represented in renowned collections, such as the STRABAG Collection Vienna and Luciano Benetton in Treviso.
Her ink drawings on watercolor paper show a world in black and white, sometimes humorous, but always with a mature depth. She does not discuss topics that are abstract and far removed from people’s everyday lives. Their symbols are also “down to earth” and easy to understand. Her worlds, which are often devoid of people, are either drawn by hand or worked out digitally on the computer, are provocatively strictly geometric, almost painfully linear, which goes far beyond the constructivism widespread in Central and Eastern Europe. In this clear, pragmatic design language, Maria Corejova works on fundamental socio-critical questions, such as how the value of freedom has changed in the last thirty years.
Born in the communist dictatorship of Czechoslovakia, the artist experienced the subject of freedom in a special way. There were painfully clear rules that one had to adhere to. She learned what happens in everyday life, for example when official and social rules and restrictions apply and how people still look for and find their own little personal freedom in them in everyday life. In the end, the flow of life that breaks through always wins in her work.
As a fullbright scholarship holder, Maria Corejova studied in the USA and lived there for a long time. In the USA, the simple symbol of freedom for more than two hundred years, the artist has found that the Western model of society sets similar limits and control systems in its morality. Using common sense, she reports on the so-called free western society, sometimes joking with it.
Maria Corejova‘s geometric design language underlines the depth of the socio-critical aspects. Her enchanting ability to draw straight lines by hand, the clear composition of her work, the constructivist approach that is not distracted by color, together with her own sense of aesthetics make Maria Corejova one of the great, unique and therefore serious Central European talents of our time.
Download Exhibition Catalogue (pdf): Click here
ARMIN MÜHSAM “MULTIVARIANT CAUSALITIES”
22.9.2021 – 9.1.2022
Armin Mühsam, born 1968 in Cluj-Napoca lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. In his work is visible the constructivist influence which leads to architectural clear sujets, calculated, without any space for coincidence.
“All life is architecture”, the artist explains his position.Aside the architectural quotation of his new home, the Middle-West of Northern America which reminds on Edward Hopper, Mühsam completes his work with organic elements of nature as forests, trees, clouds. He describes a technocratic consumistic contemporary world with all its exaggeration.
Geometric clear lines are representing the analytic linear thinking, which is discovered as one of the possible causalities. In his later works he is reducing until almost it is not more possible, to identify the scenery he wants to make us aware of. Diagonals, lines, cubes, squares and complementary colors are representing a reasonable world. But nature is breaking through by the easiness of clouds, sunny atmospheres and the fed green of the forests.
Armin Mühsam’s work is more than social critic on the “American way of life” which became a “global way of life”, it is a reminder on natural, classical, eternal laws, like the appreciation of life. Even when he shapes the nature into gemometric lines, it becomes a rememberance on classical values and based on that a social critic. As the situation of our polluted world has many causalities, as well Armin Mühsam has many causalities, to warn us.
The obvious strong colors in his work are a sign for the passion for life, but as well, in all deep thinking, he awakes emotions and reminds us to get angry. There are many different good reasons to loose the patience.
The nowadays rare combination of message and artistic approach in Mühsam’s work, makes him one of the most remarkable contemporary artists born in Romania.
Download Exhibition Catalogue (pdf): Click here
THINGS IN THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR
From May 10th to July 2nd, 2021, the Private Art Club ART 9TEEN will once again present art from Romanian private collections in the 19th district of Vienna. Under the title “Things in the rear-view mirror are closer than they appear – Romanian contemporary art from the collection of the MARe Museum in Bucharest”, post-communist painting and video art from the MARe Museum of Contemporary Art will be shown. The focus is on conceptual art from southern Romania, works by Gili Mocanu, Anca Mureșan, the great Ecaterina Vrana, who unfortunately died far too early, Dumitru Gorzo, Nicolae Comănescu, Virginia Toma, completed by Videoart from Regele Ionescu and Mitos Micluseanu as well as Audioart by Regina Ionescu.
The exhibition is complemented by works by the named artists, which are made available by Dan Popescu, Managing Director of the Bucharest H’art Gallery.
The exhibition will take place from May 10th to July 2nd, 2021 in the premises of the ART 9TEEN Private Art Club in the 19th district, Billrothstraße 29. Online reservation required. Free entry!
Online Reservation: Click here
Download Exhibition Catalogue (pdf): Click here
LACK, GOLD UND FARBE – DIE FRAUEN DES FRÉDÉRIC LÉGLISE
From December 7th, 2020 to April 2nd, 2021 the Viennese Private Art Club ART 9TEEN will be showing portraits of women by the Parisian painter under the title “Lack, Gold und Farbe – Die Frauen des Frédéric Léglise”, which are in constant dialogue with self-portraits by the master of contemporary figurative art Art.
In 2012 Léglise made his debut in Vienna in the group exhibition “GOLD” in the Lower Belvedere, following on from this, ART 9TEEN wants to put a highlight of the winter season with this exhibition and dive deeper into the work of the French painter and present it in Vienna. Mostly it is portraits of Asian women that Léglise represents. His image composition is very clear, at times amazingly simple. It is no coincidence that Léglise is reminiscent of Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secession. This becomes particularly clear in the way in which Léglise uses gold as well as oil and lacquer. Even the topic of crossing borders and bringing nudity out of the private moment into the public is reminiscent of Klimt. Most of his models move naturally in everyday contemporary situations. To the viewer, it seems as if women are enjoying this moment. The painter encounters the model and the situation of their enjoyment in the adoration of a French knight. This is expressed in the delicacy of the presentation and its color scheme courting femininity.
In February 2016 the French “Beaux Art Magazin” celebrates the work of Frédéric Léglise on the cover as “The great return of the figurative”.
Léglise, who also teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Grenoble, is one of the leading French artists with exhibitions in Paris, Basel, Seoul, Athens and Tehran, among others.
“Lack, Gold und Farbe – Die Frauen des Frédéric Léglise” is on show from December 7th, 2020 to April 2nd, 2021.
Download Exhibition Catalogue (pdf): Click here
OANA IONEL – SECRET STORIES OF DANUBE RIVER
From September 9th – November 20th we are presenting paintings and drawings by Bucharest artist Oana Ionel. The exhibition proposes an immersive experience inside vast lyrical abstract spaces as symbols of the surrounding vibrant life, reconfiguring a potentially mnemonic map of the river Danube and its secret stories.
“In a reality where the tendency to build walls seems more enduring than the will to create bridges, the question arises as to how optimal a cultural diversity can coexist in a common space. An elementary answer can be drawn around the notions of esteem, empathy and resilience. Along the river, the borders become permeable, abstract and metaphoric.”
Danube River is described as one cultural region which enables diversity and requires respect. Oana Ionel is known for her sociological narratives on a meta-political level, as well as for her clear compositions and strong colors.
Oana Ionel (b.1984) lives and works in Bucharest, Romania. She graduated the „National University of Fine Arts” (Bucharest). She holds a PhD in Visual Arts since 2018; she is also a graduate of the „Faculty of Psychology” (The University of Bucharest). Between 2009 and 2010 she studied at „Ecole Supérieure d’art” (Grenoble, France.
Download Exhibition Catalogue (pdf): Click here or scan QR-Code
“Secret Stories of Danube River” was on view September 9th until November 20th, 2020 and has been under the patronage of Dr. Erhard Busek, former Vice-Chancellor of Austria.
GLOBAL CONTEMPORARY
Yes, there are art lovers and collectors in Romania who are passionate about contemporary international art from different continents. The exhibition wants to show that and that the collectors look around in New York, London, Berlin and other cultural hot spots, and yet one does not lose touch with the home. The concept of the exhibition follows this expanse and unites the different positions without being overloaded. What is striking about all the differences in the portfolios is the fact that Romanian collectors place great value on the style, quality, aesthetics and message of the artist.
The exhibition GLOBAL CONTEMPORARY – Art from Romanian private collections includes 22 works by 14 artists such as Maximilan Arnold (D), Teodora Axente (RO), Stefania Batoeva (BG), Robert Davies (USA), Jens Einhorn (D), Oana Ionel (RO), Peter Krauskopf (D), Frédéric Leglise (F), Maxim Liulca (MD), Armin Mühsam (USA), Ciprian Muresan (RO), Birgit Reiner (D), Radu Rodideal (RO), Yonatan Vinitsky (IL/GB)
“Global Contemporary” was on view from June 24th to September 4th, 2020.
REMAPPING THE FUTURE
The idea for this exhibition came up in the times of lockdown, because of COVID-19. While people are not allowed to leave their houses without essential reasons, shops, factories and companies are closed and the world is caught up in a lockdown, in order to avoid the virus, a group of four Slovakian artists started to remap the future.
They developed an own draft of the map of their future. Preparing the exhibition and even simple things as transporting artworks brought the four artists and the gallery to their limits, or lets say to the borders of their present mapping. Borders thought by humans are coming and going, it seems to be an eternal circle.
But honestly, the time of staying in our houses showed us that it is possible but not necessary to run around and travel like ants. It is possible as well to stay at home and enjoy the family as a safe harbour, and to respect and appreciate nature. This is the main idea in the works of Alena Adamikova. She points it out like that “The animals on the heads of the Infantas in my works represent the protectors from the nature, nature is here for us, we humans somehow don’t notice it”. In her lyrical work, Alena Adamikova is inspired by the Baroque paintings of great masters as Diego Velasquez. She leads us in a remapped future of family, harmony and fairytales.
As well the map of the structures of our daily behavior is changing. Everything is ordered with guide-lines as in the work of Maria Corejova. Even in Isolation caused by COVID-19 the life is more systematic, clear, clean, functional, but there is a window. The individual freedom to create your own life. It will get more and more important. This is one of the main thematics in the work of Maria Corejova, the understanding and meaning of individual freedom. Remapping the future, creating another plan of the future means nowadays to put this plan on the ground of a new understanding of freedom: The freedom of others and our-selves.
Kristina Mesaros looks in her works behind the mystery of time and space, in order to describe a magic phantasy world in a contemporary and timeless symbolism. Her work is different than phantastic realism, as it had been brought up by great Viennese masters as Ernst Fuchs. Her work is more than the continuation of surrealism but she develops a kind of magic realism, which is fascinating the observer, who is almost falling into the scenery. Her artworks are the kind of works you never forget.
In the works of Olga Pastekova we are coming back to the role of nature in our daily life. She is a figurative painter, but working and experimenting with wood and other materials. This rare combination expresses a certain myth behind her work. She is engraving, cutting, painting over it, filling the wood with color, painting with fire, burning the wood and integrating the black scars of nature into the expression of her reminder, that the real myths and legends in our life are those who combine reality and nature and look behind it. In her work black is not a color, it becomes a memory.
All four artists are representing a generation of self-confident and strong Central European women. In their diversity they are unified to be ready to remap the future, their own future, the future of their families, of nature and the future of Europe, even after the lockdown.
“Remapping the future” was on view from May 2nd to June 19th, 2020.