24 February 2022

Two new sculpture exhibitions opened in Vienna: 'Face to Face. Marc Quinn meets Franz Xaver Messerschmidt' at the Belvedere and 'Erwin Wurm. Subject' at König Galerie at the KHK - Kleines Haus der Kunst

Marc Quinn and Erwin Wurm are contemporary artists who reflect in their work upon everyday life, struggling in life, structural differences, abilities-disabilities, the social environment with all the different values in a symbolic language that makes communication through art easy to understand.

At the center of 'Face To Face. Marc Quinn meets Franz Xaver Messerschmidt' at the Belvedere is the 'Emotional Detox' series which tells the story of liberating oneself from self-imposed compulsions. The series is autobiographical. In the early 1990ies, the artist "...was struggling to overcome the physical and emotional agony of alcohol withdrawal. During this period, he regularly visited the Messerschmidt sculpture 'The Strong Smell' at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This powerful 18th-century depiction inspired Quinn to express his own experience in the Emotional Detox series." (Cited from the press release belvedere.at/en/face-face.) At the exhibition, visitors can explore mental states of emergency created by two artists in times of personal difficult situations.

Image, left: Marc Quinn, Emotional Detox II, 1995 (Copyright Marc Quinn Studio) and Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Character Head No.33, 1777/1783 (Copyright Belvedere, Wien). Image courtesy of Marc Quinn studio. The sculpture (left at the picture) portrays the artist himself living in his own created hell of self-destruction, punishing himself with his own hands. The series of sculptures reference the Seven Deadly Sins such as the fifth sin gluttony (over-consumption of food, drink) or the sin number sixth wrath.


Today on 24th February not far from the Belvedere in a distance of an around 20 minute walk, the exhibition 'Erwin Wurm. Subject' will be opened with a vernissage with invited guests from media, art, theater, TV,... (invitation only) at the König Galerie at Vienna's newest art destination 'Kleines Haus der Kunst', the KHK. From tomorrow the 25th February, the exhibition can be visited by the public until 14 April 2022. Central at the exhibition is the work series 'Icons' with marble sculptures of classical food of Wiener Würstelstände (Viennese sausage booths) like sausages, rolls or pretzel sticks. For artist Erwin Wurm, the Würstelstand food is a symbol of a social environment and of social attitudes strongly connotated with a "...certain type of white male, the kind who discuss their worldviews over a sausage at the stand, usually narrow-minded worldviews that are rife with prejudice and intolerance, not to mention anti-feminist attitudes." (Cited from kleineshausderkunst.at/subject/.)

Image, right: Erwin Wurm SUBJECT 2021. © Courtesy of the Artist, KOENIG GALERIE.