It is almost impossible to breathe and move within the linguistical system in which we are embedded. Art brings new movement into our consciousness. An artist portrait ofInci Eviner.

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Inci Eviner, born 1956 in Polatli, to the southwest of Ankara, completed her artistic education at the national academy of fine arts and the Mimar Sinan University. Inci Eviner’s international career took off in the mid-1990ies. In individual exhibitions and during residencies her work was displayed in Paris, New York, Rotterdam, Bellagio and Tokyo, by reputed galleries and institutions, furthermore she participated in numerous group exhibitions around the globe. Currently the artist resides and works in Istanbul, where she holds a professorship for combined art at the Yildiz University. more »

Jürgenssen explores the scope of female identity constructions and the gender roles within her sociocultural environment of the 1970ies. By means of drawings and photography she develops surreal and subversive counter-concepts and demonstrates that humor and poetry can very well go along with feminist strategies.

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In cooperation with Verbund Collection, the Bank Austria Kunstforum has the first posthumous retrospective of Birgit Jürgenssen on display, with 250 works of art of different media. In drawings, watercolors, Polaroids, photograms, objects, performances and videos, Jürgenssen explores the scope of female identity constructions and the gender roles in her immediate sociocultural environment. more »

Maria Lassnig: “Soft as marmalade, marmalade out of blood I’m batted and feel hindered and left locked out from the world of painting.”

“There was a saying, if a boy is born, parents drink a schnapps, but if it is a girl they would only celebrate with water or even less … nothing”, recollects Maria Lassnig in one of her recently numerous interviews

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Born in 1919 she started to scribble her first artworks at a very young age. Once her mother even seeked the help of a fortune teller because her little girl was holding her hands in such a crooked way while drawing, that she looked like a fool. Although her mother was told to support her daughter, her only thought was to get her married to a decent man to keep her out of harm’s way. more »

For a long time, porcelain was imported into Europe from Asia, obtaining values on the market comparable to gold. In 1708, alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger discovered the formula for hard porcelain. As a result, Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and Böttger’s employer, allowed for the first porcelain manufacturer to be established in Meissen. The alchemist and his colleague at the factory were prohibited from traveling in order to prevent the spread of the formula. But by 1718, an arcanist fled from Saxony and smuggled the formula to Vienna, where another manufacturer was developed – Augarten, the first competitor of the Meissen porcelain.

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Porcelain production in Meissen specialized early on in figurines, which were status symbols of the wealthy upper class at this time. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, production methods and tastes changed. The porcelain figures soon gained the notorious reputation of being a mass-produced form of kitsch. After a visit to the Meissen factory, Goethe wrote that “it is bizarre that one finds very little there that one would like to display in one’s own household.” On view “are only items which are undesirable and no longer sought after, of which there are not only one, but hundreds and thousands.” more »

The openness of her parents — to both traditional Islamic positions as well as the value system of the recent secularly oriented republic — was passed on to the children. Their upbringing allowed for independent thinking and provided the incentive to take autonomous positions. Füsun Onur studied with Hadi Bara at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, who broke with the tradition of sculpture in the form of official monuments in the fifties. A five-year postgraduate degree in the USA followed, after which she returned to Istanbul, where she has been continuing her artistic work in Kuzguncuk.

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Füsun Onur has played an important role in the development of modern Turkish art, possessing the power not only to invent her own view of things beyond reality, but also to create the space for such a world. Füsun Onur, among other artists, is responsible for avant-garde currents making their way into the primarily traditionally-oriented art enterprise of Turkey in the early 70s. Her independent approach not only strengthened other modern artists at this time, but she also continues to affect and inspire recent generations of Turkish artists. more »