Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB)

The Kunsthaus Bregenz is one of Europe’s leading museums of contemporary art and renowned far beyond the borders of the Vorarlberg. Since its foundation it has successfully established itself on the international art scene. Its specific profile is based on the brilliance of its architecture, the quality of its program and the openness of its discourse. Its task is to provide information on the development and trends in contemporary international and national visual art. The Kunsthaus Bregenz focuses its work on the dialogue between art, architecture and society.

Architecture

The KUB stands in the light of Lake Constance. It was constructed in 1997 by the internationally renowned and Pritzker Award-winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Thus, the Kunsthaus Bregenz is one of the world’s most important museum buildings of contemporary architecture. Designed as a daylight museum, the building impresses with its significant exterior form and the non-compromising implementation of its spatial concept.

Current Exhibition

KUB 2020.03
Peter Fischli
12 | 09 – 29 | 11 | 2020

Peter Fischli begins with a paradoxical intervention. Black furniture is usually to be found in the KUB lobby. Fischli has covered the elegant surfaces that Peter Zumthor designed using precious birds-eye maple with whitewashed particle board constructions, for his solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz. “It’s literally a re-construction,” states Fischli. The interior of the lobby has been embellished, the distinctive refined by the cheap.

Holders hang on the wall on all the floors, containing a leaflet designed by Fischli. Such fixtures would usually be made of wood or plastic, but Fischli has cast them in bronze. He is, once again, provoking a reversal in hierarchy – albeit, this time, in the opposite direction. These objects have been upgraded, from simple exhibition fixtures to elaborate unique pieces, that is, works of art. The invitation card features an image of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The reproduction is a low resolution one, obviously downloaded from the Internet and apparently clumsily positioned towards the upper margin. “BREGENZ” is inscribed above it, as if someone had mistaken Bregenz for Bilbao.

• Peter Fischli at Kunsthaus Bregenz

Exhibition preview

KUB 2021.01
Ashley Hans Scheirl & Jakob Lena Knebl
12 | 12 | 2020 – 07 | 03 | 2021

They are hardly unknowns in the international art world, either individually or as a duo, at least not since the news that Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl will be conceiving the Austrian Pavilion for the 59th Art Biennale in Venice in 2022. But now, even before that, KUB Director Thomas D. Trummer has succeeded in bringing the queer artist duo to Bregenz for the first exhibition at KUB in 2021. The exhibition is already starting on December 12, 2020.

Employing paintings, textiles, expansive installations, and stage set-like constructions, Ashley Hans Scheirl and Jakob Lena Knebl will be transforming Kunsthaus Bregenz into an anarchically humorous cosmos from mid-December 2020 to early March 2021. Ashley Hans Scheirl and Jakob Lena Knebl defy any conventional categorization, questioning social assignments of role in relation to gender identity, genres, materialities, techniques, spaces, and context. “Once again we will be presented with something that has never been seen before at KUB. Scheirl & Knebl’s art is colorful, provocative, sensuous, and smart,” promises KUB director Thomas D. Trummer. Scheirl and Knebl will be representing Austria at the 59th Art Biennale in Venice in 2022.

• Ashley Hans Scheirl & Jakob Lena Knebl at Kunsthaus Bregenz