Ju Aichinger: Fragile Power in Clay, Costume and Queer Worlds

Austrian artist Ju Aichinger transforms everyday materials into metaphors for queerness, intimacy, and social presence.

Who Is Ju Aichinger ?

Vienna doesn’t lack talent but few artists move through its scene with the bold sensitivity of Ju Aichinger.

Ceramics that blush. Costumes that shout. Installations that breathe like bodies.

Born in 1995 in Bad Ischl and currently based in the city’s queer and experimental core, Aichinger brings clay, fabric, and performance into charged conversation.

ju aichinger, artist — **Ju Aichinger** sitting on their own artwork — a moment of presence and authorship. Artist portrait featured on Munchies Art Club. Permission and courtesy of the artist.

They work in ceramics, installation, costume, and painting, but it’s not about medium.

It’s about staging identity, bending material, and making space where softness resists and style reveals.

Their work isn’t just expressive. It’s a mirror, a gesture, a refusal to fit in quietly.

Who is Vienna’s Boldest Interdisciplinary Voice? Ju Aichinger Might Be It.

There’s a theatrical stillness in Ju Aichinger’s work that feels anything but quiet.

Clay becomes character, costume becomes echo — **Ju Aichinger’s** to be or not to be (butch) turns the gallery floor into a stage of queer gestures. Shown at Semperdepot, Vienna. Permission and courtesy of the artist Permission and courtesy of the artist

In to be or not to be (butch), **Ju Aichinger** renders softness in ceramic and subversion in silhouette. A haunting and humorous staging at the **Academy of Fine Arts** Vienna, Semperdepot. Permission and courtesy of the artist

Ju Aichinger’s to be or not to be (butch) asks: what remains of performance when the body steps out? Clay and textile hold the answer. Presented at Semperdepot, Vienna. Permission and courtesy of the artist

Ceramic bodies lean, stretch, bend, and bloom; fabric drips from limbs like unsaid thoughts; eyes painted on paper look back at you, not asking, but knowing.

The spaces Aichinger builds are dense with intention, even when they're soft, silly, or strange. One enters not a room, but a world that has already made its mind up: you’re here to witness.

**Ju Aichinger:** *Solid Caps* (Edition of 13), glazed ceramic with rhinestones, 2024. Permission and courtesy of the artist.

Aichinger has emerged as a multi-hyphenate force in Austria’s contemporary art scene.

Artist, costume designer, and co-curator of the collective Zirkusgasse 38, Aichinger doesn’t simply make objects, they choreograph social texture.

Their work dissolves distinctions: between figure and object, sculpture and apparel, image and embodiment.

You don’t view Aichinger’s pieces. You find yourself inside them.

candle faces, in contemporary art — **Ju Aichinger:** Candle Faces (WIP) Permission and Courtesy of the Artist

wax candle in contemporary art — **Ju Aichinger:** Candle Faces (WIP), Permission and courtesy of the artist

What’s striking is the tension between fragility and command. Aichinger’s ceramic sculptures, often referencing queerness and the coded language of bodies, flirt with collapse.

They sag, smirk, and seduce, embedded with pinks, skin tones, and gleaming glazes. There’s humor here, yes, but it’s not lightness.

ju aichinger — **Ju Aichinger:** Performance by Zeynab Kirikou Gueye & Lau Lukkarila Hold yr ache 2 my ache, stage design and costume in collaboration with Val Holfeld **Pics:** Marcella Ruiz Cruz Permission and courtesy of the artist

performance, ju aichinger, artist — **Ju Aichinger:** performance by Zeynab Kirikou Gueye & Lau Lukkarila Hold yr ache 2 my ache, stage design and costume in collaboration with Val Holfeld **Pics:** Marcella Ruiz Cruz Permission and courtesy of the artist

It’s a queer laugh in a heavy room. Their installations, especially the series surrounding to be or not to be(butch), revel in contradiction: strong silhouettes in vulnerable poses, bold gestures shaped in gentle material.

Pop culture meets queer code, softness becomes defiance. Theatricality isn’t decoration, it’s resistance.

Detail from *kneading to the 3rd millennia* — concept by Lau Lukkarila. Choreography and performance by Charlie Laban Trier, Ju Aichinger, tiran, Manuel Riegler, and Lau Lukkarila. Photo by Jean Marc Turmes. Permission and courtesy of the artist

impuls tanz festival — Detail from *Lapse and the Scarlet Sun*, presented at ImPulsTanz Festival Vienna. Artistic direction and performance by Luca Bonamore and Lau Lukkarila. Photos by Hanna Fasching. Permission and courtesy of the artist.

Costumes designed for choreographers like Lau Lukkarila or Alex Franz Zehetbauer aren’t accessories but sculptural exclamations: identity made wearable, movement as manifesto.

**Ju Aichinger:** Five of Swords glasierte Keramik, geschmolzenes Glas, Video, Luftpolsterfolie Photo: Photos by Philipp Pess

Aichinger’s practice makes space for people who have often been told to take up less of it.

In conversation with artists like Jakob Lena Knebel or Ashley Hans Scheirl, with whom they’ve exhibited, Aichinger’s voice resonates with a newer generation of interdisciplinary queer makers in Vienna: bold, performative, and materially precise.

But what sets them apart is the emotional intelligence embedded in every glaze, drape, or cut of fabric. There is no irony for irony’s sake, only intimacy turned sculptural.

These aren’t just works about identity. They perform identity. They make it tactile. Touchable. And perhaps most importantly, shareable.

Key Themes

Queer embodiment
Identity as material
Social metaphor via objects
Performance and staging as sculpture
Costume as sculpture

Exhibition view: **Ju Aichinger** at @the_dessous . A sculptural staging of presence, tenderness, and queer materiality. 📸 Photo by the artist. **Permission and courtesy of the artist.**

Notable Series / Visual Motifs / Curatorial Projects

to be or not to be(butch): installation + ceramics + costume hybrid work
Part of Kollektiv Zirkusgasse: curatorial space and communal dialogue via art staging
Solid Caps : glazed ceramic baseball caps that subvert masculine symbols and turn everyday objects into queer-coded relics

Ju Aichinger’s work sits at the intersection of queer performance and sculptural craft.

ju aichinger artist , article by Ernst Koslitsch , for munchies art club and catapult artist feature — **Ju Aichinger** (Studio) work in progress . Permission and courtesy of the artist

They’re not just contributing to Vienna’s interdisciplinary wave, they’re shaping it.

With a practice rooted in collective energy, bodily intuition, and visual wit, Aichinger belongs to the lineage of artists who refuse to separate identity from form.

ju aichinger artist feature — **Ju Aichinge**r -> Artist Spotlight on Munchies Art Club. A bold voice in Vienna’s queer art scene, fusing ceramics, costume, and intimacy into sculptural worlds. **Permission and courtesy of the artist.**

Follow Ju Aichinger on Instagram and keep an eye on their future exhibitions, performances, and collaborative projects, especially within Vienna’s shifting queer art ecology.

Which piece would you want to step into?

Ernst Koslitsch is an artist, writer, and co-founder of Munchies Art Club. His work navigates the intersections of speculative fiction, archaeology, and visual systems, while his writing reflects a deep interest in contemporary art’s shifting languages, both digital and material.

With a critical yet generous tone, he contributes essays and features that spotlight artists whose practices resonate beyond surface and trend. For Munchies, he curates with curiosity and contradiction, often questioning what visibility means today.