FASCINATION PAPER. Medium and Protagonist.

Paper is one of the most familiar materials in art—and one of the most surprising. In the exhibition “Fascination Paper”, it unfolds not merely as a surface, but as an active medium: tactile, fragile, playful, and remarkably expressive. In the exhibition film, the Albertina curators Elsy Lahner, Katharina Hövelmann, and Eva Michel guide us through selected highlights of a show that deliberately defies expectations.

For the first time, works from different collections and eras have been brought together in a shared, exploratory parcours. Old Masters encounter contemporary art; rare, delicate sheets meet large-scale paper objects. Many of the works on display have rarely—or never—been shown before, opening new perspectives on a material that has shaped art history for centuries.

The film reveals how paper expands into space: most strikingly in a remarkable 26-meter-long Japanese leporello from the 19th century, whose vividly preserved woodblock prints illustrate scenes from The Tale of Genji, one of the earliest psychological novels in world literature. Here, paper becomes a narrative landscape—one that can be experienced physically, step by step.

Another focus is the self-portrait, the “self on paper.” Rembrandt’s etched self-portraits are placed in dialogue with contemporary works that explore identity, the body, and self-reflection. Seen together, these works demonstrate how paper can register thought, emotion, and doubt with astonishing immediacy—even in the smallest formats.

Movement, illusion, and composition form further thematic threads. Historical folding objects, early image machines, and satirical prints meet works in which paper becomes performative or carries political memory. Particularly powerful are those pieces built from many individual elements, where paper serves as a vessel for collective history and personal fate alike.

The exhibition film invites viewers to rethink paper—not as a passive support, but as a living medium that touches, challenges, deceives, and connects. It offers an entry point into an exhibition that favors experience over explanation, revealing how an entire world can unfold within a single sheet of paper.

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Interviewee: Elsy Lahner, Eva Michel, Katharina Hövelmann
Artworks by: Utagawa Kunisada, Utagawa Hiroshige, Rembrandt, Tone Fink, Jacob Anton Premblechner, Johanna Calle, Thomas Demand, Peter Flötner

Copyright info: The audio and video recording has been made with personal permission of the artist.
Licensing: 0
Language(s): German
Subtitles: English
Producer: KA21 GmbH / CastYourArt
Production crew: Wolfgang Haas, Helmut Feier, Melvin Urregg, Michael Rottmann
Production country: Austria, Vienna