Peter Rieser translates his thoughts on the interaction between art and private public space into a mosaic of images – Sceneries of Interaction.
In the design process and repeated walks, even in public he feels a state of privacy and familiarity, which in turn is interfered with by the unusual and unfamiliar – all enclosed by the space of photography.
Through his process, he filters the generally accessible space for aesthetic reference points, observes the imprints of interpersonal interaction that arise in it and concretizes these using parameters of digital photography. Employing chance as a co-composer, Rieser does not stage his pictures – he sees, selects and organizes.
The boundaries between art that is placed in public as such and artistic impressions that arise in public space dissolve, and as the subjects of the photographs detach from their original context so do Peter Rieser’s framed inkjet prints detach from their exhibition walls. (Text: Rebecca Unz)

Alone Together shows a locked room that only seems to be accessible if you – searching your way through barricades – detect a loophole. René Stiegler’s spatial intervention refers to the opposites of our being and the everyday dualities of inside and outside, emotion and ratio, community and isolation or freedom and closedness. Within these supposed opposites, the grey shades of our existence are generated, as well as the challenges that – as essential components – make our existence worth living.
René Stiegler’s artistic practice primarily consists of a combination of self-exploration and the exploration of a wide variety of philosophical and psychoanalytical concepts that seem meaningful to him personally as well as to our present. Through the installative embodiment, an attempt is made to make these considerations tangible and to convey mutual understanding.
René Stiegler (*1991) studied industrial design, attended the Ortweinschule (master class sculpture) and is a prospective student of Alexandra Bircken at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

Christian Prünster’s spatial installation Hollow Steles, conceived for Suahtsnuk, deals with the aggressive extraction of raw materials and the accompanying global movement of materials.
The installation consists of 30 approximately 27 x 27 x 27 cm cubes of different materials. The cubes are arranged in a grid and will be repositioned frequently during the exhibition period and combined with other thematically „matching“ cubes to form steles. In this way, until the end of the exhibition, empty spaces and steles are created that should symbolize material and layering combinations as well as socio-economic and socio-ecological impacts caused by the extraction of raw materials from resource-rich areas.
The installation aims to point to resource-conscious action and the importance of the possibility of raw material returns, and to encourage reflection on the impact of „voids“ on regional ecosystems.

You almost want to take a deep breath, expecting to smell fresh forest air when entering Microcosm. Val Smets combines mushroom objects growing filigreely from the ground and an overhead canvas with psychedelically distorted light, a projection and scent to create a multi-sensory and hypnotic spatial intervention. And by doing so, she courageously accepts the invitation to temporarily make use of the interior space of Suahtsnuk. She plays with the perception of the visitors, inviting them to settle down in the oscillating installation for a moment of reflection.

Val Smets works intuitively, painting her nature-inspired motifs in intense colours on large-format canvases that are always laid horizontally on the floor. In addition to corals and jellyfish, mushrooms in particular have become a recurring motif in her artworks, culminating in an intense research and exploration of themes such as biodiversity, environmental protection and symbiotic processes. In Microcosm, the artist seeks interaction not only with the visitors, but also with Alfredo Barsuglia’s sculpture itself. Thus, she expands her characteristic mushroom motif to include mycetophages (fungus-eaters) and snails to refer to the mutualistic symbiosis and complex reciprocal structures of our ecosystem. Microcosm aims to interrupt straight ways of thinking and to trigger reflections on how we–as humans–can deal with our environment in a more sustainable and thoughtful way, by taking nature itself as an example, so to speak.

Lisa Großkopf’s (*1989, Vienna) artistic work encompasses diverse techniques ranging from photography to performative art. Her projects are dedicated, among other things, to the social use of photography, human behavior in the digital world, and the differences and peculiarities of public and private space.

In the exhibition Only the tough get into the garden, Lisa Großkopf shows excerpts of two works that relate to the thematic field of gardens in the broadest sense, thus creating a connection to the snail farm on the roof of Suhatsnuk. While the photo series Atopia captivates through the presence of human absence, the performative work Quitting smoking might be easier is all too human.

The photo series Atopia portrays an extraordinary Romanian salt mine. Due to the high salt content of the air, parts of the mine have been converted into a health-promoting amusement park. In order to make the time spent underground as pleasurable as possible, there are play and sports equipment, PC stations, religious devotional images and bizarre-looking object arrangements. Lisa Großkopf shows the rooms depopulated, as absurd stages of human staging.

In her most recent work Quitting smoking might be easier, Lisa Großkopf deals with the longing for eternal youth. By means of exaggerated adaptations of real and invented beauty rituals and cosmetic products, the artist exposes the absurdities of the short-lived trends of the cosmetics industry.

The installation Beauty of Mess and Less shows a mix of natural and manufactured materials accompanied by a video showing how the two artists interact with these materials to find unfamiliar forms and new meanings. Some things are taken from the trash, some are factory-fresh. The work deals with the entanglements of human bodies and objects and with the vitality of matter.
Today, in the Anthropocene, there seems to be nothing left untouched by humans. Dwindling species, thawing permafrost, landscapes of toxic trash: human impact appears all-encompassing. But the reverse is also true, nothing we get in touch with leaves us unchanged. It is this mutual interaction Jasmin Hoffer and Oleg Soulimenko scrutinise in Beauty of Mess and Less.
Beauty of Mess and Less is supported by the Cultural Department of the Styrian Government and KultRent.

Jasmin Hoffer and Oleg Soulimenko have been working together for a couple of years, creating performances in which they examine potential relationships between the human body and other forms of matter. Jasmin Hoffer is a dancer, choreographer and performance artist, who teaches contemporary dance. Oleg Soulimenko is a performance artist and choreographer. They both live and work in Vienna, and their performances have been presented at a variety of venues all over the world. Most recently, they showed their projects Beauty of Mess, Trash and Unknown desirers (2021), Loss (2017) and Swimming Pool (2018) at brut, Vienna.

Maria Bakhareva (*1988, Penza, Poolzje, Russia) & Tatiana Ivolga (*1990 Tomsk, Siberia, Russia) met in 2010 during the entrance examination at the Moscow Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In addition to their academic training, they were interested in plein air painting, in particular to grasp and learn how to “see colors”.
During the curfew during the pandemic last year, they used video conferences to discuss their feelings and make them part of their artistic work.

We want to show emotions in their inner and outer impression. Two opposites: water and fire, which exist simultaneously and separately from each other. The one who finds the center of the opposites of this universe can feel and find himself.

Simon Reitmann, born 1999 in Rottenmann, works as a trained cabinetmaker along clear structures. In terms of content and form, he follows a design principle that assigns an essential role to space. His straight metal objects also show inclination (s); despite the precise formulation, these are clearly studies of movement. He is interested in the pictorial quality of the object, in experimenting with the relative density of a body. Reitmann researches the qualities of his material and opts for irritation as a stylistic element. As part of the collective SAMA, founded in 2020, Reitmann works conceptually and understands his work as „in progress.“ The whole is not closed and statically joined. It is in motion. (Text: Bettina Landl)