It was wonderful being in my birth city of Vienna again and meeting with friends and artists.
The first day of my arrival I was able to attend the opening of the new building of the Landesgalerie Niederösterreich in Krems, just north west of Vienna. The structure is conceived as a twisted cube and has a completely versatile interior which allows for flexible exhibition layouts. My friend Erwin Redl had a large installation in the basement level during the pre-opening.
This year there were several important openings that happened to fall on the same night in May and it was surprisingly manageable to hit all of them. It was particularly nostalgic to visit the Kunsthalle Exnergasse where I had a show back in 1995. Vienna has an engaging scene on nights like this and it was wonderful to immerse myself:
Vienna Biennale for Change 2019/MAK
Hysterical Mining/Kunsthalle Wien
In addition to seeing several shows, I was able to visit some studios of artists related to the exhibitions, including an artist I follow for many years now, Christian Eisenberger.
One of my childhood friends runs a cutting edge design firm that I am very impressed with: Peach Agency. They do a lot of work in the art field including websites, catalogs and PR campaigns for cultural institutions.
Another highlight was visiting the Albertina’s Hermann Nitsch exhibition “Spaces of Color.”
