How long have you been running the gallery?
Since December 2008 in St Christoph and since May 2009 in Bregenz.
How would you describe your gallery profile? (Focus, emphasis, development)
The Hospiz Bregenz gallery, and its future location at the "Hospiz Bregenz Gallery / Art Villa", is all about the promotion, transfer and sale of young contemporary art. It serves as a figurehead and an extended arm of the Hospiz Center of the Arts with the location of St. Christopher.
How do you distinguish yourself from other galleries?
Over our two years of activity, it has emerged that we want to do more than traditional galleries, we want to make the exhibition venue a topic in itself. In addition to their existing work, artists develop interventions specifically for the exhibition location.
What does this have to do with you as a person? (Training, events, contacts)
The entire activities of the Hospiz Center of the Arts are born out of my passion for art, which also finds expression in my own painted works. Art opens up new and surprising perspectives on things that surround us, and ultimately art simply has value as an event that also supports our hotel activities.
With which artists do you work? Please select max. 5
Alfredo Barsuglia
In his installations, Alfredo Barsuglia questions the durability of glamour and celebrity culture. What are the mechanisms for the acceptance of beauty, how they work, and with what media they are transported and strengthened? The artist uses the traditional medium of painting and extends it into large-scale installations.
Eva Chytilek
Eva Chytilek surprises viewers of her installations with her fabulous stories of the seemingly impossible: a cabinet which, through some internal force, acquires more and more holes, and thus becomes a light sculpture; a boat that leaves the narrow, dark space of a box; or sofa cushions that reveal their secrets.
In so doing, Chytilek plays with the dysfunctionality and transformation of everyday objects. She confuses by making the known unknown.
Kirsten Helfrich & Isabel Haase
In her artistic work, Kirsten Helfrich deals with themes about beauty and transience. In her work, the artist responds with different artistic media to ideals that dominate our society, but negate its reality.
Isabel Haase’s artistic work is also characterized by the use of different media. With photography, video, object and installation, she explores topics such as the relationship of public and private spaces, as well as taking up objects of daily life. In addition to a fine, clear aesthetic, her work also subliminally includes great unease and unrest.
Cristina Fiorenza
Cristina Fiorenza’s painting focuses on people in their everyday environment, and in so doing, helps the ornament to a new renaissance. The garments of her silent protagonists, the carpets, floors and walls in the displayed interiors are richly patterned in detail. Collage-like, these fragments rise from the picture surface and insist on their own authority within the overall visual structure. In contrast, the background of her work is reduced to the purely functional. Sober, bleak, stereotyped urban architecture rises like soulless layers of floors, windows and balconies.
Marlene Hausegger
Marlene Hausegger infiltrated the public sphere in a very subtle way. Her interventions are characterized by a dissection, a deconstructing view. She puts the spotlight on that which we would be only too happy to ignore: bridge pylons, signs, paved surfaces. With minor interventions, she creates, playfully, new meaning and creates associative, surprising contexts. The visual language that she uses is borrowed from the world of comics, illustrations and graffiti. With simple means, such as adhesive tape, chalk or simple objects, Hausegger gives new functions or meanings to these places.
Whom will you be exhibiting next? What would be particularly important to note? We will open the Hospiz Gallery Bregenz / Arts Villa with a group exhibition of five artists, all born in the West (Tyrol and Vorarlberg area) and now living in Vienna. The exhibition, curated by section.a, deals with a broad topic area. The spectrum of artistic work ranges from specific, real spatial interventions, to the social and political implications and to the picture-innamental meaning of space. Plans for the future? Where does it go from here? The activities of the Center of Arts and Hospiz Bregenz Gallery / Art Villa should be increased; the visibility should be increased. Ultimately, art should be permanently implemented in the activities of hotels, and the Art Gallery and Villa should be established as a venue.
Rathausstraße 27
6900 Bregenz
Austria
www.hospiz-galerie.at