Nature & Symbol

The special exhibition Nature & Symbol focuses on issues of identity and existence as well as on questions relating to the search for the “where from” and “where to” of our ephemeral lives that flow through space and time. Four artistic stances from the ALBERTINA’s collection of drawings and prints make especially clear the influence had by artists’ respective genders, generations, and origins on their creative output, for which reason this presentation centers on the juxtaposition of 20 works by Franz Gertsch, Christiane Baumgartner, Ofer Lellouche, and Kiki Smith—all of them acquisitions and donations of the past two decades.

This selection of works also shows how the digital and analog worlds as well as reality and imitation have been dealt with from an immensely broad diversity of perspectives.

Franz Gertsch, for example, designs his woodcuts based on photographs, thereby accomplishing a transcendence of nature. How does first-degree nature—say, a woman—relate to projected nature? How does a female nude appear depending on whether the portrayal arises from a male or a female gaze? How is it to define oneself rather than be defined? This presentation also features discourses on questions of identity, be they in light of religious, geographic, political, or gender-specific aspects, as in the cases of Ofer Lellouche and Kiki Smith. This special exhibition also places different generations in artistic dialogue, highlighting relationships such as the catalytic role that the oeuvre of Franz Gertsch played in the work of the young Christiane Baumgartner.

On view from 6 August until 13 September 2020