Vienna's Heldenplatz

Three pavilions as a prologue to the Styrian Show

A huge, walk-in picture by Herbert Brandl invites visitors to the pavilion, which will travel on to the Styrian towns of Mariazell and Leoben after Vienna.

(Bild: UMJ/J. J. Kucek)

Traditionally, the pavilion on Vienna's Heldenplatz heralds the start of the Styria Show. This year it tells the story of "Ambition & Illusion" in three parts.

Even before the opening, the curiosity of passers-by was great. In the three pavilions on Vienna's Heldenplatz, which provide an artistic foretaste of the Styria Show, this year's "Ambition & Illusion: History Repeating?" will be spectacular. The opening was also attended by Karlheinz Kornhäusl, the Provincial Councillor for Culture.

This year, from April 26, the exhibition organized by the Museum Joanneum is all about the Eggenberg dynasty, who built a palace in Graz during difficult times - keywords: the Little Ice Age, epidemics, financial crises - which is a significant work of art full of baroque theatricality.

Provincial Councillor Kornhäusl with the UMJ team

(Bild: UMJ/J. J. Kucek)

400 years later, we are confronted with similar crises. It is therefore particularly exciting to see how artists react to them today. Curator Günther Holler-Schuster has rounded up some amazing artists. And for most of them, the topic was so exciting that they developed works especially for the pavilions. Hubert Schmalix, for example, designed fragile emojis for the façade of the pavilion, whose motto is "Baroque theatricality". Inside, there is music by Klaus Lang that refers to the ceiling paintings in Eggenberg. On display are sculptures by Erwin Wurm, which have a certain inherent decadence.

Pavilion façade by Hubert Schmalix

(Bild: UMJ/J. J. Kucek)

Three pavilions with current themes
In the second - "Tradition and Modernity" - you can actually step into a painting by Herbert Brandl to the sound of a tree by Constantin Luser. There are also sculptures by Karoline Rudolf and Antonia Jeitler and works by Plateau Residue and Mito Gegič. Pavilion three "Regional Identities" in turn shows Styrian panthers by Franz Kapfer that cast large shadows, while Total Refusal explores Styria with computer game aesthetics. Lena Violetta Leitner shows an integration center for plants, Andreas Heller questions fences and Michael Pöllinger leads us into nature. Photos by Christof Neugebauer and the first painting by Milica Tomić complete the dense presentation.

Until March 30, visitors to Heldenplatz will have the unique opportunity to marvel at all three pavilions (by Graz-based architecture firm studioWG3) at once, after which they will go on tour separately: The baroque pavilion will move to Eggenberg Palace Park, the pavilion with Brandl's 180-square-metre mountain-shaped picture to Mariazell and later to Leoben and the Alps-Adriatic pavilion with the Styrian exploration to Ljubljana in Slovenia for the time being.