Vienna Contemporary Art Fair 2022

munchies Art Club magazine

vienna contemporary art fair, feature munchies art club online magazine
Art Fair Vienna
Josef Zekoff | Sarah Bogner | Roman Pfeffer | Titania Seidl | Ernst Koslitsch | Adela Giurgiu | Agnieszka Polska | Katharina Daschner | Šimon Sýkora | Simon Lehner and many more ...

The Vienna Contemporary Art Fair 2022 |  8th to 11th September

This year the Contemporary Vienna art fair takes place at the majestic Renaissance Kursalon building that opens up to a beautiful park in central Vienna.

In comparison to the Parallel Vienna, its a small art fair but no less significant in the art event filled month of September in Vienna.

the central kursalon  hosts this years vienna contemporary art fair
Kursalon Vienna | Location of Vienna Contemporary 2022 | © Kursalon Betriebs GmbH / SHI Beteiligungs GmbH

The Vienna art fair presents exciting newcomers, established galleries, and a curated special with exhibitions focusing on the Central- and Eastern European countries.

For all who plan to visit the fair this weekend, enjoy this years central location and walk around the city, explore all of its cultural attractions, and explore some of Viennas prominent galleries nearby.

Here we share some of our old time favourites as well some new discoveries. 


1. Basic Projects by Jecza Gallery

BOOTH - E01

paintings by adela giurgiu
Paintings by Adela Giurgiu | Basic Projects by Jecza Gallery | Image courtesy the Jecza Gallery

Present the artists:

Adela Giurgiu, Virginia Toma, and Ghiulvessi Vladiana.

The Jecza gallery returns to Vienna Contemporary as Basic Projects

Basic Projects developed out of the aim to take a closer look on the questions and ideas that stimulate artistic practices today, being committed to look at art not from a geographical perspective, instead returning back to the work and its storyline. 

virginia toma + ghiulvessi vladiana | basic projects
Virginia Toma + Ghiulvessi Vladiana | Basic Projects

Basic Projects by Jecza Gallery serves as a departure platform for emerging artists from Romania and abroad.

Its mission is to provide to artists a context for exchange, dialogue, presentation and production.

Basic Projects is founded and run by Andrei Jecza and Alina Șerban.

adela giurgiu on view on the right, basic projects,by jezca gallery
Adela Giurgiu on view on the right | Basic Projects by Jecza Gallery



2. GEORG KARGL

ZONE 1 - BOOTH Z4

Georg Kargl Fine Arts presents new prints by Agnieszka Polska, all related to her museum exhibition The Thousand-Year Plan, Museum of Modern Art, Warsawa, and “The Longing Gaze”, a work that reflects how highly developed surveillance spy on us and record our living. 

This was during the Corona crises the only gateway to the world. 

georg kargl fine arts, agnieszka polska, diamond 2
Georg Kargl Fine Arts | Agnieszka Polska | Diamond 2 | 2021 | Chromaluxe print on aluminum | 100 x 70 cm | Ed. 5 | Courtesy the artist and Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna 

The images taken from surveillance cameras are interwoven with a poetic text by Agnieszka Polska appealing relationships in connection with intimate togetherness.

BOOTH A13

Second Booth A13 contains works by David Fesl, Katrina Daschner, David Maljkovic and Rosa Rendl.

david fesl , georg kargl, vienna contemporary
Georg Kargl Fine Arts | David Fesl | Untitled | 2021 | Ceramic jug handle, tennis ball, Mediterranean cypress cone, plastic, ointment tube nozzle, textile fishing net, wrapping paper, lighter wheel | 10,7 x 8,2 x 5,6 cm | Courtesy the artist and Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna | Photo: Ramiro Chaves 
katrina daschner, lesbian teletentakel #3
Georg Kargl Fine Arts | Katrina Daschner | Lesbian Teletentakel #3 | 2022 | Fabrics, threads, synthetic hair and brass | 200 x 140 cm | Courtesy the artist and Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna Photo: Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna 
david-maljkovic, part 7: exhibition, mixed media
Georg Kargl Fine Arts | David-Maljkovic | PART 7: EXHIBITION | 2020 | Mixed media | 109 x 74 cm | Courtesy the artist and Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna |Photo: kunst-dokumentation.com 
kargl fine arts gallery, rosa rendl | clothing rack II
Georg Kargl Fine Arts | Rosa Rendl | Clothing Rack II | 2020 | Inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper, laminated on lightweight foam board, spruce wood, acrylic glass | 60 x 40 x 5 cm | Ed. 1 + 1AP | Courtesy the artist and Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna Photo: Simon Veres 

3. KOW Gallery

GROUND FLOOR – BOOTH 12

We discovered the gallery KOW Berlin 2 years ago at the first SPARK Art Fair and have admired their selection of artists ever since. This year at the Vienna Contemporary they present 4 Austrian artists:

Heinrich Dunst, Sophie Gogl, Simon Lehner and Oswald Oberhuber.

kow berlin, presents artist heinrich dunst,
Heinrich Dunst | Ohne Titel, 2007 | Acryl auf Leinwand | 90 x 70 x 5 cm | Courtesy the artist and KOW. 

Heinrich Dunst was born in 1955 in Hallein (Salzburg, Austria), He lives and works in Vienna.

Dunst creates spatial interventions and performances that navigate the gap between what can be seen and what can be said, the untranslatability of one form into another, and the contextual nature of spatial presentations.

Dunst‘s conceptual approach is rooted both in the work of artists like Marcel Broodthaers who scrutinize the systems underlying the perception of words and images, and in the Viennese scene of the 1980s and its characteristic ambition to extend abstract painting into the exhibition space.

He lends these complex issues fresh interest by developing forms into correlations and pointedly questioning the seemingly unequivocal meaning of the elements through variation, superimposition, and changes of direction. 

kow feature munchies art club online magazine
Sophie Gogl | Stay in your lane, girl, stay in your lane, 2020 | Acrylic on wood | 160 x 120 cm | Image courtesy KOW Gallery 

Sophie Gogl was born in 1992 in Kitzbühel, Austria, and studied pain-ting at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna with Prof. Judith Eisler.

Gogl addresses the question of what narratives painted images can achieve in the face of an infinite world of images that appear and disappear again between the Internet, films, advertising and private motifs, often brought forth and sucked back in by data streams.

Where the painter‘s gaze drifts into the offside, sometimes ab-surd, spaces in the imaginable and possibilities of a contemporary painting are revealed.

Time and again, Gogl‘s practice also includes installations and combinations of different media.

Her first solo exhibitions took her to the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna (2020) and the Galerie der Stadt Schwaz (2020), as well as a group exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern (2020). In 2021 she had her first solo exhibition at KOW. 

simonlehner, painting, kow gallery berlin
Simon Lehner | Acrylic on unique foam plate– lens-based CNC Painting | 90 x 72 x 8 cm | Courtesy Kow Gallery

Simon Lehner‘s still young work—the Vienna-based artist was born in 1996—is characterized by a recurring traumatic structure.

A structure in which human emotions and memories converge with processes of artificial intelligence that reconstruct the past, the buried or the repressed, but also deform it and remove it from human control. In this way, works are created that draw on private and public image archives and work on a contemporary iconography of the psychic state of emergency.

A state that not least shakes male self images, which are in any case and rightly in question, but which Lehner also problematizes as a highly ambivalent question of identity and toxic masculinity. Lehner moves pictorially between classical photography, digital forms of production, and painting. 

kow, oswald oberhuber, noch einmal, 2009, mixed media
Oswald Oberhuber | Noch Einmal, 2009 | Mixed media, cardboard | 120.4 x 62 x 56 cm | Image courtesy the estate of Oswald Oberhuber and KOW Berlin 

Oswald Oberhuber‘s oeuvre originates from the spirit of informal art of the post-war period, art that no longer liked to adhere to classical principles of form and composition.

Oberhuber contributed to this awakening with his informal sculptures. But the Austrian, born in 1931, soon went further: in 1956 he declared formlessness to be the general maxim of his artistic practice - and an attitude to life.

He borrowed Leon Trotsky‘s concept of „permanent revolution“ and made „permanent change“ the watchword of his negation of aesthetic and social norms.

In this way, his emerging life‘s work opened itself up to recurring leaps and transformations and moved with chutzpah across all media for six decades.

In addition, Oberhuber was influential in cultural and educational politics and shaped artistic attitudes of several generations. The two-time documenta participant, who also represented Austria at the 1972 Ve- nice Biennale, died in Vienna in 2020. 


4. Persons Project

GROUND FLOOR | BOOTH - A12

The Persons Project present Jakub Julian Ziółkowski

Jakub Julian Ziółkowski is known for his ability to link together the human and the supernatural in his paintings.

His ceramics continue the spiritual dialogue from his paintings, blurring the line between divine abstractions and clear human anatomy.

persons project present jakub julian ziółkowski
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski | Persons Project
persons project ceramics by jakub julian ziółkowski
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski, "Untitled" | 2021 | Ceramics, oil and paint


5. POLANSKY GALLERY

ZONE 1 - BOOTH Z02

The Polansky gallery presents in a solo presentation the most recent paintings of Šimon Sýkora.

polansky gallery presents contemporary artist simon sykora
Šimon Sýkora | Willows, 2022 | Oil on canvas | 130 x 110 x 5 cm | Image courtesy the Polansky gallery

Šimon Sýkora (b. 1990 in Pilsen, Czech Republic, lives and works in Vienna) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Prague in 2019. Sýkora’s spookily melancholic paintings explore the hazy realms of wanderers and misfits. 

simon sykora, vienna contemporary, feature munchies art club online magazine
Šimon Sýkora | Saunter, 2022 | Oil on canvas | 120 x 80 x 5 cm | Image courtesy the Polansky gallery

Existing in a reality that is almost violently Bataillean, the artist’s work explores the more internalized notions of the human condition which is rather imperceptible, but agonizingly present and powerful in shaping one’s reality.

polansky gallery, art fair, vienna contemporary
Šimon Sýkora | Carrying on, 2022 | Hitchhike, 2022 | Oil on canvas | each 40 x 30 x 5 cm | Image courtesy the Polansky gallery



6. GALLERY EVA PRESSENHUBER

Galerie Eva Presenhuber proudly presents a statement by Tobias Pils at Vienna Contemporary 2022 in celebration of the opening of a new gallery location in Vienna earlier this year. 

gallery eva pressenhuber presents painting by tobias pils
TOBIAS PILS | You see me (This is how I feel), 2022 | Oil on canvas | 135.5 x 95.5 cm / 53 3/8 x 37 5/8 in | © Tobias Pils | Courtesy the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber | Photo: Jorit Aust

The main gallery at Lichtenfelsgasse 5 1010 Vienna will showcase new works by Karen Kilimnik from September 9 – October 22 2022.


7. RAUM MIT LICHT

FIRST FLOOR - BOOTH E08

The Austrian Gallery Raum mit Licht presents artworks from the artists:
Sarah Bogner, Karin Fisslthaler, Ernst Koslitsch, Olena Newkryta, Roman Pfeffer, Titania Seidl, Andrea van der Straeten and Josef Zekoff.

vienna contemporary art fair, raum mit licht gallery
Raum mit Licht | Vienna Contemporary
sarah bogner, and her smoking horse-like hybrids
Sarah Bogner | Raum mit Licht
ernst koslitsch artist, scupture, painting, mega contemporary
Ernst Koslitsch | „Displaced Artifact ( Nr:1) | Sculpture | Yellow Wood | Paint54cm x 215cm x 47cm



8. RAVNIKAR GALLERY SPACE

B02 & Z01

The Ravnikar Gallery Space presents the artist Nika Kupyrova.

RY1-4 | Hard-finish plaster, yellow orche and iron oxide pigments Dimensions: 13x9x13cm | Courtesy the Ravnikar Gallery Space | Photography by Xenia Nitzberg 

Project 

Taking its name from a randomly generated WLAN password, work series Yaekahngai considers the screen to be a portal to hypothetical parallel worlds, with entry prerequisite to having access to the right gate and the correct digital key. 

BY2-1 | Hard-finish plaster, yellow orche and ultramarine pigments | Dimensions: 13x5,5x5,5cm | Image courtesy Ravnikar Gallery Space

The artist re-imagines the exhibition space as a system driven by a subterranean mushroom network – and yet the pseudo-organic algorithmic repetition of shapes and hues is more similar to an immersive computer game than it is to a real forest.

Sculptures, reminiscent of standing stones, mark the points of transition into mythological realms – or have we already passed into another world unwillingly? 

RB5-1 | Hard-finish plaster, iron oxide and ultramarine pigments | Dimensions: 12x4,5x4,5cm | Image courtesy Ravnikar Gallery Space

Biography 

Nika Kupyrova (1985 in Kyiv, Ukraine) is living and working in Vienna and Prague. She studied Painting at the Edinburgh College of Art, Fine Arts at the Iceland University of the Arts and Transdisciplinary Art at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. 


9. ELISABETH & KLAUS THOMAN GALLERY

FIRST FLOOR- E05

Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman present the artist Thomas Feuerstein.

Thomas Feuerstein was born in Innsbruck in 1968, lives and works in Vienna. He studied art history and philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, doctorate 1995.

Installation view Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman Gallery at Vienna Contemporary

From 1992 to 1994 co-editor, with Klaus Strickner, of the magazine Medien. Kunst.Passagen, published by Passagen Verlag Vienna. 1992 founded the office for intermedia communication transfer and the association medien.kunst.tirol.

THOMAS FEUERSTEIN | SUPERSTRING BUDDHA, 2022 | 3D ceramics print | 40 x 30 x 37 cm

1992 and 1993 research commissions from the Austrian Ministry of Science on art in electronic space and art and architecture.

Since 1997 lectures and seminars at the University of Innsbruck, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Berne, F + F Zurich, Technical College Intermedia Dornbirn, University Mozarteum Salzburg, University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Feuerstein was awarded the Austrian Art Award for Media Art 2019. Since 2020 Feuerstein has been teaching as professor for artistic discourse at the Institute for Experimental Architecture at the University of Innsbruck.

THOMAS FEUERSTEIN | Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman | C-prints on aluminum

For more impressions of the Vienna Contemporary 2022 head over to our Instagram account:


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