Museum in Linz

Iceland’s exciting nature as a source of art

State Culture Prize winner artist Therese Eisenmann(Bild: Horst Einöder/Flashpictures)

The wild, chaotic and unpredictable - that is Iceland. The well-known Upper Austrian artist Therese Eisenmann has been impressed by the island's landscape. She is exhibiting new works at the Francisco Carolinum Museum. The Icelander Sigurður Guðjónsson is presenting an impressive work from the Venice Biennale.

Iceland, the island in the north, has often been in the headlines in recent months due to volcanic eruptions. "We knew and expected it," says Sigurður Guðjónsson in the "Krone" talk.

The media artist is from Reykjavik and says: "Some places are empty now." In the last three years alone, there have been eight eruptions that have led to mass evacuations, even in settlements just an hour away from the capital.

A powerful experience in the museum space
This is Guðjónsson's first time in Linz, and he has brought with him the brute, powerful, loud installation "Perpetual Motion", with which he represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale two years ago.

It is a video: a moving column made of crystals or iron filings, accompanied by sounds that activate the entire room. They create a resonant space with an original effect, although everything has less to do with nature and more to do with technology. A fascinating experience at the pulse of time.

Multi-sensory sculpture "Perpetual Motion"(Bild: Sigurdur Gudjonsson)

Waves and icebergs
In contrast, Mühlviertel artist Therese Eisenmann focuses on fire, water and ice. 

She traveled to the island and was inspired by the landscape. The result is a series of large drypoint etchings, as is usual for Eisenmann. You can see waves, billows, icebergs, lava beaches, embedded in an adept interplay of light and shadow (until January 12).