Der Semmering als Bühne der Gegenwart (Semmering as a Stage For The Present)

(on view in Semmering until September)
Die Nase, Shop window at department store Louvre, Hochstraße 60
La belle vue, series of five small oil paintings, Hotel Belvedere, Hochstraße 6
Kulturmontag (Culture Monday), series of eight folded steel plates, hiking trail towards Pinkenkogel, behind Hotel Panhans, Hochstraße 36

(on view June 3 and 4, 2023, Villa Schönthaler)
Der Schillingblick (Schillingblick Overlook), video, color, 16 minutes (also on view during guided tours in summer)
The Pulcinell, 2023 (La comedia dell’arte), video,1min 44sec

With his installation it’s on, Abdul Sharif Oluwafemi Baruwa has created a loose sequence of theatrical scenes spread all over Semmering in an ephemeral network of site-specific interventions revealing a sympathy for hikers and casual explorers. These fragments display a specific engagement, as well as episodes or stories. The artist is interested in marginal phenomena, in the incidental, and in the charm of things in the process of decay. Yet his view seems to be captured by the beauty of distance, the panorama, the layers, and the worlds of color and shading.

Kulturmontag (Culture Monday) is one of these stories. Elegant color elements seem to be placed as if by accident along the forest hiking path leading to the Pinkenkogel Mountain. Arranged as an ensemble, they create a well-composed space of color resonance through their interaction with the surrounding nature. 

La belle vue is an homage to the Hotel Belvedere. Five small oil paintings commemorate the artist’s pleasant stay at the Hotel Belvedere in 2021 while making preparations for the exhibition Land, Property, and Commons. The paintings become integrated in the already existing wall decorations.

The La belle vue series can be seen from June 1 to October 30, 2023, in the restaurant of Hotel Belvedere.

From the train station toward Schillingblick Overlook: The short video Der Schillingblick (Schillingblick Overlook), which not only reflects the artist’s view of the surroundings, but more importantly, also shows the coinciding view, the view from a distance, as well as specters of the past in the form of colonial legacy. The view that expands all the way into the present and haunts us. The colonial view, according to Bartholomäus Grill, remains somehow rooted in our cultural DNA. We are often not even aware that modernity, the age of enlightenment and progress, laid the foundations of discrimination. We need a second, proper enlightenment that deconstructs these patterns of perception.

In a showcase of the Louvre department store hangs Die Nase (The Nose). Is it Gogol’s nose? Or a conspiracy? Who knows? We can see the artist holding what might be a nose that is large, yellow and red in front of his face.

With calculated unpredictability and eccentricity, these moments assert their own time. 

Three-part audio installation (each part 2–3 min), scenography
Room 304, third floor of Kurhotel Stühlinger, Dr.-Hermann-Stühlinger-Straße 1

(On view only during guided tours)

When Mark Chehodaiev did his research in Semmering right after Easter, this coincided with all the local restaurants being closed due to the off season and a cold front with snow and freezing temperatures that brought back winter. He followed a car with a Ukrainian license plate to two Ukrainian refugee hostels. After carefully approaching some of the inhabitants, he began to collaborate with a group of Ukrainians who have found refuge in Semmering. The artist talked to them and established a relationship of trust. Chehodaiev was interested in finding out how they feel about having to flee their country for fear of their lives and now living in a resort-like environment meant for recreation. Because returning to Ukraine is still too dangerous, Semmering has become a home for many of them. Yet the infrastructure of the area primarily caters to short visits and vacations, creating a discrepancy from the needs of the Ukrainian community and making it difficult for them to develop long-term prospects.

The three short narratives presented in Room 304 of the Kurhotel (resort hotel) reflect a complex and ambivalent situation that is defined by the traumas of war and the conditions that are characteristic for a resort.

Hope is the opposite of fear

An information stand on wheels is the primary vehicle for Ines Doujak’s homage to women defending their land all over the world. She invites visitors to take part in a parade on the Hochstraße in Semmering. In this mix between a parade, a procession, and a demonstration, the artist honors these women by calling for solidarity and resistance. Most of them are from the Global South and regard defending their communal land as something greater than their own lives. They thus find responsibility for a shared future.

With waving flags, music, and coffee in Semmering, the artist invites people to celebrate these women from all over the world who defend their land, showing resistance to exploitation, land grabbing, and mass consumption.

June 3, 2023, 2 to 3 p.m., meeting point: Hotel Panhans, Hochstraße 36

Installation, burlap, unfired clay

This once barren forest is populated by structures that were planted there by human power and will. Olha Horiunova’s work refers to the connection between the terrain and the artificial objects that have grown into the landscape. Derelict buildings that have now merged with the rocks highlight the phenomenon of interweaving as the theme of Bindung (Connection): How does what humans have created and constructed—in contrast to what has evolved—cross the paths of nature, and how does nature gradually incorporate what humans have created into the Semmering forest, making it part of the landscape?

Just as nature transforms what is constructed, the artist forms the materials into a work that points at the building of decay, which is the first thing that can be seen from the forest. The installation located opposite it, on the other hand, refers to the path that leads to the forest and freezes the moment in time, directing our attention toward the unavoidable process of nature’s transformation.

on display from August

The program Solidarity Screenings brings together video works that address the current war between Russia and Ukraine, its consequences, as well as its perception, while attempting to inspire people to reflect about this. All videos are by artists who live in Ukraine and were made after the beginning of the Russian military invasion on February 24, 2022.

The project’s goal is to capture and represent evidence, thoughts, and feelings about this continuing conflict in Ukraine. Artistic reflections provide unique insights into the effects of the conflict on people’s lives in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, enforced migration, occupation, and volunteer and resistance movements.

Through personal stories and opinions, the videos present current artistic practices in an intimate and genuine way. The program shows the many different effects of this conflict on the daily lives of individuals, families, and communities in Ukraine. The idea behind the screenings is to promote local awareness of the situation and to offer Ukrainian artists a platform for sharing their perspectives and experiences with audiences from all over the world, while presenting their own interpretations of the complex political and social problems in the heart of Europe.

The program Solidarity Screenings presents works by Eugene Arlov and Diana Derii, Bohdan Bunchak, Roman Khimei, Anna Kryvenko, Zoya Laktionova, Yarema Malashchuk, Maria Matiashova, Daria Molokoedova, Vladyslav Plisetskiy, Alisa Sizykh, and Daryna Snizhko. Curated by Serge Klymko.

 (Film screening on 3 and 4 June, 2023, Villa Schönthaler)