Close - Distant

About

The exhibition Close - Distant deals with the search for identity in space and time. It questions the binary notion of near and distant, explores the complex introspective or extrospective relationships, geographical, cultural and psychological proximity that is expressed through the diversionary materiality of young contemporary art. It presents a selection of works by students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, created in the Department of Painting, studio Art and Image / Abstraction under the supervision of prof. Michaela Eichwald and Thomas Winkler and the studio Art and Image / Context under the supervision of prof. Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann.

The exhibition Close - Distant invites us to reflect on the nature of our existence in relation to ourselves and to others, to present, past or future concrete and imaginary situations and places that shape us.  Karen Barad in her essay On Touching—The Inhuman That Therefore I Am write: “When two hands touch, there is a sensuality of the flesh, an exchange of warmth, a feeling of pressure, of presence, a proximity of otherness that brings the other nearly as close as oneself. Perhaps closer. And if the two hands belong to one person, might this not enliven an uncanny sense of the otherness of the self… the greeting of the stranger within? So much happens in a touch: an infinity of others—other beings, other spaces, other times—are aroused… What is the measure of closeness?”

Proximity and distance are concepts that, although seemingly contradictory, often coexist in our lives. Physical and emotional proximity or distance can be interchangeable; physical proximity may not equate to shared understanding or experience; just as emotional proximity may exist solely on a psychological level. Artists reflect the inner and outer worlds in their works, exploring the dynamic relationship between materiality and meaning. In addition to traditional painting mediums such as oil and acrylic, they use non-traditional materials such as fabric, leather, and found objects, creating a hybrid platform that is constantly shifting in the tension between elegance and brutality. As Karen Barad suggests within the concept of agential realism, materials are not merely passive substances but active participants in the creation of meaning. The very process of painting, which is a physical act of touch, thus reveals that materials - pigments, textures and surfaces - are co-creators of artistic expression. The resulting works move from figuration to abstraction and back again, seeking form between chaos and order, reflecting the profound contrasts of life.

The title of the exhibition Close - Distant also refers to the geographical proximity and at the same time a certain cultural distance between Bratislava and Vienna, which is the result of different historical trajectories and political systems. The two cities were strongly intertwined until the beginning of the 20th century as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The political division of Europe after the Second World War, which lasted until 1989, was a major factor in their later divergent development. The exhibition aims to highlight the possibilities of activating cultural cross-border cooperation, which, even 35 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, is proving to be an underused potential.