Vitus H. Weh Bücher

Amorphous and vibrant, childlike depictions of societal and personal demons Austrian artist Michael Vonbank (1964-2015) traces individual and collective "demons" through his colorful childlike paintings and sculptures. In a permanent oscillation between human, animal and demonic states of being, his grotesque figures convey insights into the riveting spectacle of inner transformation.

In alle kulturellen Gebieten tauchen seit einigen Jahren Kristalle und andere geologische Versatzstücke immer häufiger auf. Das Kristalline, als Inbegriff der Dauerhaftigkeit und Härte, ist dabei meist gekoppelt an das genaue Gegenteil: das Welken, das Flüchtige und Hinfällige. Zu diesem ambivalenten Phänomenen versteht sich „Glanz und Verderben“ als eine kulturhistorische Recherche und präsentiert die verschiedenen Disziplinen, Kunstwerke und Dokumente gleichberechtigt nebeneinander.

This volume documents the long-term initiative 'Safety Curtain' of Museum in progress, a project that is unique in the world. The exhibition series in the Vienna State Opera has represented a symbolic interface between performance and visual arts since 1998. It also creates a link between thorny historical questions and contemporary ways to address them. Beyond the actual curtain images that have originated over the years an associative and sensuous view to further related works of the participating artists in several different media forms is presented. The art project 'Safety Curtain', because of its exceptional quality, its year-long existence and its unusual dimension of 175 m² is singular and enables a distinctive perspective of art history of the past twenty years.