Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller: Songs of Experience
A collaboration with MACRO (Museo d'Arte Contemporanea), Rome
Phileas, Opernring 17, Vienna
21 June – 14 September 2023
Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller, Installation view of Songs of Experience at Phileas, 2023. Photo: kunstdokumentation.com/ Manuel Carreon Lopez
Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller, Installation view of Songs of Experience at MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, 2021. Photo: Simon d'Exéa
Our summer exhibition in 2023 presented the work of photographer and filmmaker Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller, alongside a group of primarily younger artists.
Kubelka’s works, which are produced using analogue techniques and developed in the darkroom, often have as a focal point the psychological portrait. Through portraiture, the artist attempts to explore her own identity and those of others, in a sometimes provocative way. Kubelka is mostly interested in the sensual, intimate moments in which uncontrolled reactions, trains of thought or the emotional worlds of her protagonists become visible. Convinced that a personality cannot be fully portrayed in one photograph alone, Kubelka works in photographic series, an approach that she adopted at an early point in her career.
The project was an adaptation of an exhibition that took place in 2021 at MACRO (Museo d'Arte Contemporanea) in Rome curated by director Luca Lo Pinto. Songs of Experience presented a selection of historical works by the artist - psychological portraits exploring intimacy with the self and others - in dialogue with contributions by four artists of different backgrounds; Seiichi Furuya (born 1950 in Izu, Japan), Talia Chetrit (born 1982 in Washington D.C.), Philipp Fleischmann (born 1985 in Hollabrunn, Austria), and Sophie Thun (born 1985 in Frankfurt, Germany). The artists were selected specifically because of their related working methods and/or a close personal relationship to Kubelka. The exhibition was co-produced by Phileas and the Austrian Federal Ministry.
The exhibition in Vienna was also curated by Lo Pinto, and was Kubelka's first solo exhibition in the city in over a decade. The exhibition was accompanied by a public programme that included talks and film screenings.
Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller (born 1946 in London to Austrian parents, lives and works in Vienna) is a hugely influential artist whose work ranges from conceptual photography and experimental filmmaking to Freudian psychoanalysis. In 1990, she founded the Friedl Kubelka School for Artistic Photography in Vienna. The school was the first of its kind in Austria to be devoted exclusively to artistic photography. Later, in 2006, she founded the Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film, dedicated to the art of analogue filmmaking. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Austrian Art Prize for Artistic Photography in 1999, the Grand Austrian State Prize for Artistic Photography in 2005, and the Austrian Art Prize for Film in 2016. In 2020, the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg presented a major retrospective of her work.
Opening hours at Opernring 17, Vienna
Tuesday - Friday 11am - 5pm
Saturday 11am - 3pm
& by appointment
