Wonders of the Future

Kunstraum Konrad has invited Ariane Mueller and Martin Ebner to implement an exhibition in Puchberg am Schneeberg, which arises within and in engagement with the possibilities of the art space as an exhibition venue, the environment, and its embedding in a rural area with urban connections.

For this purpose, an installation project will be shaped in advance and then on-site, consisting of a musical piece, specifically a song cycle, developed in reflection on the exhibition location. The songs are integrated into a setting that encompasses both the art space and specific aspects of the outdoor space, including the street and the garden.

The thematic anchoring arises from the history of Puchberg and its status as a summer retreat for Austrian poets (exemplified here by Friederike Mayröcker and Ernst Jandl), the idea of a poetics emerging from the encounter with the landscape, which is reflected in the texts of the writers about this region, and the engagement with Viennese Romanticism as found in the texts of these authors. Another reference point is the lyrical logic and metaphysical abstraction that speaks from the texts of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who also found himself in Puchberg and entered into a kind of existential opposition to his surroundings there.