[Exhibition]
2024
Aequilibrium
[Curator]
Gabrielle Berlin
Gabrielle Berlin
1988 | Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she lives and works in Vienna, Austria.
Gabrielle Berlin (married Hoyos) earned a Bachelor Degree in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College in London and a Masters Degree in Publishing at London College of Communication. Motivated by a passion for people and their creations she has been supporting Artists and Makers as a curator, writer and publisher both independently and through institutions. She has assisted the chief curator, supervised the Residency programme at the Belvedere in Vienna and represented the German auction house Karl & Faber in Austria. Today, Gabrielle works freelance as a curator, on projects such as Salon Meiselberg. She has also been managing the studio of Marina Blanca Skulpturen and is putting together the Artist’s archive.
[Artists]
Fabian Albertini
1965 | Born in Montecchio Emilia, she lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Reggio Emilia, Italy.
The artist initially worked as a fashion photographer from 1995 until 2010. In this time she published her work in several magazines, some of: Glamour Italy, Grazia, Vogue Pelle and Vogue Gioello, GQ Italia, Elle France, BIBA, W, Max France. Preceeding her profession she studied at the Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Milan. From 2004 until 2016 she worked as a teacher of Photography at Atelie Da imagem in Rio de Janeiro, at IED, Sao Paulo both in Brazil. Since the artist began to take her work to another artistic level, she has been involved in solo and group exhibitions, every year around the globe. Concepts of natural existence allied to the challenge of depicting the unseen – these are the elements at the heart of Fabian Albertini’s work. The Brazilian-Italian artist is constantly on the move between Europe and South America, the polarities in her own biography permeating the artist’s work.
Cosima Bucarelli
1989 | Born in Zurich, Switzerland, she lives and works between Rome and Ibiza.
Cosima Bucarelli is a visual artist and jewellery designer based in Rome. After co-founding and directing the magazine #Horst und Edeltraut, Cosima swapped her desk for a jeweller’s bench to learn the traditional goldsmith craft from artisans in Italy and Thailand. Playing with precious metals, gems, and enamels she created Kosmicalia, a collection of transformative fine jewellery pieces that celebrate the mysterious beauty of the cosmos and channel its mystical energy. Dancing through the first lockdown, she was inspired to explore movement and matter beyond the form and function of jewellery. She now works in sculpture, drawing, performance and installation creating multi-disciplinary projects. From September 2024 she will deepen her practice at the Royal College of Art, London.
Sidival Fila
Sidival Fila
1962 | Born in Arapongas, Brazil, he lives and works in Rome, Italy.
Sidival Fila, a Franciscan friar, artist and the President of the philanthropic foundation that carries his name, roots his artistic research on disused materials, mostly fabrics, including linen, cotton, silk, hemp, brocade, and other used materials. His idea is to free the object from its “material” condition and give it the possibility to express itself. In short, starting from the fabric functionality. In May 2018, Silvana Editoriale published the official monographic text by Elisa Coletta and from September to November numerous site-specific works were exhibited at the Palazzo Ducale in Sassuolo, part of the National Museum “ Gallerie Estensi”, in a solo exhibition entitled “Sidival Fila: Prospettive Relative”. Also in 2018, the works of Sidival Fila were exhibited in some of the most important international fairs, in the cities of Madrid, Bogotà, Mexico City and New York. Fila was present at the Venice Biennale 2019 with the polyptich “Golgotha”, a site-specific installation inside the Venice Pavilion, at Giardini della Biennale. Sidival Fila's work is included in several important private collections in France, in the Principaut de Monaco, in Switzerland, Brazil and New York. In Italy his work is part, among others, of the collection of the Fondazione Puglisi Cosentino in Catania and of the Collezione d’Arte Contemporanea at the Vatican Museums.
Alec Franco (Artist in Residence 2024)
Alec Franco (Artist in Residence 2024)
1972 | Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he currently resides.
Before Alec Franco began his professional career as an artist, he tested the grounds in different workshops, beside his work as graphic designer. He began painting in 1991 and in 1993 he attended the drawing and airbrushing workshops of Ignacio Otero. His training continues in the workshops of Abstract Expressionism of Marco Otero, of Essentialism with Heriberto Zorrilla and Helena Distéfano. By 2012 he deepened his technique with Sergio Bazán and later perfected it in the clinic of Fabiana Barreda and that of María Carolina Baulo who was the curator of one of his latest samples Harena. He has been an editor together with other artists, writers, and designers of Hoornik Collection Art Magazine since 2016. He has made numerous samples between 2011 and 2017: at The Redchurch Gallery in Shoreditch, London in 2012-2013; at Stupid Perfection at the Borges Cultural Center in 2013; at the Buenos Aires Design in 2015; in the same year in the Honorable Senate of the Argentine Nation and in the Recoleta Cultural Center of Buenos Aires; the following year at the San Isidro Open Studio. The most recent: Harena, was exhibited at the Newbery Central Gallery and the Esteban Lisa Foundation in 2017.
Magda von Hanau
1978 | Born in Barra Bonita, Brazil, she lives and works between Miami, USA and Meiselberg, Austria.
Magda von Hanau graduated on Bachelor of Fine Arts from Miami International University of Art and Design. Her body of works are translated into different mediums such as drawing, photography, installations and sculpture; spanning movements, and cultures. Influences on von Hanau’s practice include nature, feminism, history, the visceral and the overall transcendence of life. Anchored by the themes of time and space, she delves into more conceptual frameworks, acutely, exploring and experimenting with the motifs of beauty, identity, loss, deconstruction and of fragmented moments from juxtaposed to capture, freeze and render visible stories that transcend time and space, and break down the way we see the world around us. Fast gaining recognition on the world stage, von Hanau’s work has been featured in several galleries, at numerous exhibitions, highlighted as public works and included in several prestigious private collections. Many of her works have been featured in top international media outlets including Architectural Digest Italia, Elle Decor, Departures, Casa Vogue Brasil, Robb Report, and elsewhere.
Alfred Hoyos
1951 | Born in Salzburg, Austria, he lives and works in Weistrach, Austria.
Influenced artistically by his mother, he has found his own path as an autodidact. His approach to art is experimental, based on personal perception, his confrontation with the environment and its creation. His search for the realization of the essential is informed by his experience of the opposites which bring focus to his art. Time spent in Australia cultivated his ideas, the vastness of a country with endless terrain leading him to concentrate on the “nothingness” which continues to influence his work today. Alfred Hoyos presents works from the 2000s which recall the stillness of torque, plastic or metal spirals turning inwards or outwards. They represent the artist’s own Aequilibrium in situ.
Clemens Wolf
1981 | Born in Vienna, Austria, where he currently resides.
Since his graduation at the University of Arts Linz, he is fascinated by dilapidated material like fences in front of dumps, abandoned warehouses and unfinished buildings. In his latest works, he sets his main focus on the process of transformation haunted by his own history. Old discarded parachutes (he is a passionate parachutist) are transformed into sensual objects. After they are immersed in epoxide resin they are layed out in tondi, hung or stand up as sculpture or stretched on frames as paintings, every crease being arranged meticulously and finally left to dry. When we examine Clemens Wolf’s obsessive and mysterious work, it’s obvious that the frontier between painting, sculpture and drawing places a great importance. The surface of the pieces with its powerfully vivid palette, reveals a world that is almost organic. While the artist sees the fabric’s contractions as a stylized representation of decomposition and decay, the resin he uses to hold the folds in place gives the works a distinctive glossy aspect and an intensity that is brought out by the delicacy of the coiled up parachute cords. The choice of such a lightweight and an aerial object as the parachute conjures up the fundamental notion of gravity.
This year, Salon Meiselberg plays host to seven international and Austrian artists who all concern themselves with the principle of existence and the boundaries of human nature, but each in their own individual way. They explore concepts of intangibility and the imaginary, the elusive feelings we find so hard to articulate when we look at art. From diverse backgrounds and upbringings, the participants span a range of generations – the 1950s, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and almost the Nineties of the last century. From painting, sculpture, photography, textile art and performance, they have studied human and natural realities from fundamentally different angles. The exhibition is deliberately free of context, detached from political, historical, religious and scientific influence. For the artists and their works, is “Aequilibrium” a statement or a call for exploration? Is “Aequilibrium” an objective state or can that only be achieved through the perception and understanding of the viewer? In this sense, the title chosen for this year’s Salon can be taken as an active challenge to the audience, set by the artist Magda von Hanau – a challenge and an aid to orientation at the same time. → MORE