Group exhibition THE REAL WEIRD MAGIC PICTURE SHOW: Supernatural & Superhuman & Supercute
with Burnbjoern, Thomas Hörl & Peter Kozek / Victor Jaschke, Hannah & Lea Neckel, Barbi Marković & Nikola Supuković, Lony Mathis, Anna Paul & Karl Karner, Georg Pinteritsch, Paul Riedmüller
with a literary contribution by Barbi Marković
spoken by Fritz Ostermayer
curated by Barbara Horvath
February 28, 2023 - April 22, 2023

We feel unsettled by disturbing horror scenarios, magical lollipop styles, and exaggerated senses of hyperreality. The only place of refuge exists beyond our reality, behind the mirrors, in another world.

In brightly colored, alchemistic pictures reminiscent of a feverish dream, dogs and aliens, sparkly stars in their eyes, feel super cute and chill with friends over heart-shaped pizzas in cotton candy Lonyland: Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies… (Lony Mathis) Other less enchanting works of art pull us into a kind of visionary world full of fantastical protagonists in high altitudes. Neon-colored characters (in crinolines) weave across boulders against the backdrop of an uncanny mountain landscape. Within, from, and with nature, the beings absorb the eeriness of the landscape with all of their senses. (Thomas Hörl & Peter Kozek / Viktor Jaschke) Digital amorphous blobs of color are transformed into blossoms, pedals, vases, and ultimately into disturbing still lifes. The antipodes “artificiality” and “authenticity” blend unabashedly into glorious bouquets of flowers in a mixture of almost all painting styles. These complex, intertwined compositions make us take a closer look at the Bilderatlas. (Paul Riedmüller) Slippers (with hot soles) out of aluminium leave behind traces on surfaces of wax stretched like skin across the room. The beeswax has the appearance of a hyper-sensitive, perpetually changing, and sensual material that is both capable of exposing delicate details and becoming uncontrollably wild. (Anna Paul & Karl Karner) And on to the exquisite small-scale works reminiscent of the remote medieval world of book illumination, at best described as apocalyptical treasures. Pink erect genitalia glisten on a fragmented Romanesque portal, a real gem. (Georg Pinteritsch) A multi-media, ultra-pink world of pleasure and symbols seduces us to enter a dream-like hyperspace that blends the internet and physical world. The online world is beyond dystopian tristesse: ma vie en rose. (Hannah & Lea Neckel) Back in the physical domain, (Burnbjoern) enters rooms that flicker so hard making it difficult to open your eyes. In these absurd-comical scenes on paper we encounter an electrifying dude in sexy spike boots and other archaic characters, is this all just science-fiction? (Reminiscent of) a video game character, pretty Mini is also alien-like when she removes her makeup and reveals the horror: Her self-transformation turns into a bloodbath. (Barbi Marković & Nikola Supuković) Author (Barbi Marković) writes, and (Fritz Ostermayer) speaks about all this (and much more): “Mini and Miki want to be nice, but nothing is easy. The world is a terrible place, everything dies. They have to suffer a lot, and that is exactly why we love them.”

The works in this exhibition burn into our jaded retinas and remain imprinted there. They have a quality about them that makes us want to take a second look, to think about them from different perspectives, driven by a kind of hypnotic visual poetry that appears both opulent and tremendously unsettling. It is rare to encounter a piece in this exhibition that does not beg to be reflect upon, that does not provoke commentary. We undoubtedly cannot remain indifferent towards otherness, the extreme, and the uncanny. This is where the participation and imagination of the viewer creates a fracture in the conventions of order and stability. The profound sensation of standing in reality with one foot while standing in a different reality with the other, is possibly our magic power to reinvent the world. All is (could be) full of love!