Caroline Mesquita: Verdet Bath / Leon Höllhumer: The Feast

For her first institutional exhibition in the German-speaking world, French artist Caroline Mesquita (b. 1989 Brest, lives in Marseille) has transformed HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark into a spa. In Verdet Bath, her guests are pampered with a luxurious bathing landscape consisting of a swimming pool, changing rooms and a drinking fountain, which offers an escape from the winter gloom, promising rest and healing from the challenges of everyday life. In this setting, Mesquita places her sculptural hybrids of animals and human-like figures in a theatrical arrangement that upends conventional notions of the relationships between humans and animals, nature and technology. In these arrangements, Mesquita raises questions about how gatherings are shaped, and how they take place at all. With her fantastical creatures, whose genders mostly remain ambiguous, she depicts a plurality of gestures unfolding at the moment the protagonists meet on set. In this sense, the narratives in her work arise from seemingly random groupings of characters which, once set in place, form a constellation of potential stories and interpretations. In her accompanying cinematic work, the artist interacts with her creations and establishes an intimate dialog between humans and creatures.

The artistic practice of Leon Höllhumer (b. 1986 Styria, lives in Vienna) stems from ideas surrounding the performativity: be it an action, a scene or a specific situation which he intends to create. In his work, transitions between individual pieces, as well as between scenic and installation elements are always fluid rather than rigid or categorical. The characters that populate his work, whether human, non-human or superhuman, allow themselves to get carried away in all sorts of ways. The Feast is Höllhumer’s most extensive institutional exhibition to date, presenting a multi-sensory experience that is not limited to the tastebuds, but whether the occasion is a party, a funeral or something else remains completely open to interpretation. The title, The Feast describes both the basic setting and the mood of the work, which develops around a banquet and encompasses three new video works, a selection of ceramic works produced especially for this occasion, and a site-specific installation. The storyline is not linear, but characterized by an open-ended and fragmented structures, in which boundaries between intoxication and reality, audience and performance are blurred in a maelstrom of detail. The attitude is playful, critical and vulgar in equal measure, and in the spirit of punk, the entire work is riddled with grotesque characters, actions and settings. As a whole, the resulting work captivates the audience with a certain aloofness, subtly drawing them in and making them its accomplices.

With Caroline Mesquita’s Verdet Bath and Leon Höllhumer’s The Feast, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark opens two exhibitions by artists who not only work primarily with sculpture and film, but who are also particularly interested in scenic storytelling. In both exhibitions, individual works are placed in relation to each other to develop narratives which go beyond simple storytelling. Caroline Mesquita is less interested in depicting individuals than in portraying whole communities, and exploring how certain situations and experiences of social interaction are created through mutual exchange. While Mesquita uses the setting of a public swimming pool to transform her brass and copper figures into a theatrical tableau, Höllhumer has created a series of (video) installations that weave together an episodic sequence of stories. Juxtaposing morbid imagery with more pleasurable scenes, Höllhumer’s piece culminates in an immersive parcours installation, offering a complex and ambivalent narrative experience. Despite the two artists’ differences in content, production and tone, both exhibitions are highly immersive in design, and unexpectedly similar in their ability to captivate the viewer.

Both exhibitions are accompanied by a weekly program of supporting and educational events, featuring lectures, workshops and performances. Press inquiries: Helga Droschl, hd@halle-fuer-kunst.at.