Exhibition from 13.12.2022 - 17.02.2023

Michaela Söll's new paintings tell of diverse transformations. The small-format works on paper (30 x 40 cm) lead into mostly dense pictorial surfaces of animal and botanical forms and fantasy creatures. Flowing transitions emphasize the organic unity. Rudiments of human faces awaken the mythical material of times long past and touch on the human hubris of the present.

The artist's most recent works open up a colorful horizon that accentuates ruptures and threat even more strongly than the black-and-white paintings that preceded them. In the struggle for color, the stories develop a sensual view of an enchanted world. The majority of the works date from 2020 to 2022 and are being made accessible to the general public here for the first time.

About the artist: Michaela Söll received her academic training in painting and graphic arts at the Master School of Painting at the Ortweinschule in Graz with Gerhard Lojen and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, graduating in 1997 in the master class of Prof. Gunter Damisch. Her works are included in public and private collections; her current work is represented by the contemporary art gallery artepari, www.artepari.com.

Exhibition from 6 - 25.10.2022

"Even Art Interprets the Bible. Gender-Fair Receptions of Old Testament Female Figures in Painting from the 17th to the Early 19th Century."

The Bible is undoubtedly the book of Western-influenced cultures. It has been interpreted not only in scholarly exegesis, in the spiritual reading of Scripture, or in the sermon, but in very different media: music, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, film, and the applied arts have all dealt with the Bible. What the arts stage and how, what they focus on or embellish and what they marginalize or even omit, often does not and did not conform to the theological interpretations.

This exhibition presents a private collection of paintings, primarily from the Baroque period, that focus on biblical women. It was not created from an art-scientific point of view, but from a feminist-theological one. While theological interpretations often marginalized women, art often inserted them into scenes that appear in the Bible "free of women" or in which women are simply "included". The collection is part of the international research project "The Bible and Women," which explores a history of the reception of biblical female figures and gender-relevant themes as well as a history of biblical interpretation by women through more than 300 scholars worldwide and whose 21 volumes are published in four languages.

The exhibition will be on view Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., October 6-25, 2022, in the Faculty Library of Theology, Heinrichstrasse 78, 1st floor.

Exhibition from 8.3. - 31.8.2022

The series "Vierzehn mal vertikal" by the Cologne artist, author and art mediator Thomas Plum could be understood as an invitation to meditation. Largely monochrome high-format color surfaces lead the eye into the deep structure of the works. The multi-layered application of paint over a period of days and the canvas strictly stretched by the drying phases create a cracked surface, which as a fine craquelé constitutes the texture of the painting. A network of scars and stains leads a contemplating counterpart into the respective own interior.

Exhibition from 19.10.2021 - 28.01.2022

Floating Individuals is the name of the new exhibition of ZeitKunst at the UZT. With photographs kept in black and white, artist Zita Oberwalder builds a bridge to the theme of the caring society from this year's lecture series "Religion on Thursday". The photo essay opens empathetic views on almost imperceptible social transformations in dealing with age(s), dying and death in different countries.

Corona-conditioned "website exhibition" in spring 2021

ZeitKunst at UZT started corona-conditioned with a hopeful sign into spring 2021. The new project with the Graz-based visual artist Anne Lückl realizes a maxim under consideration of all conceivable corona rules: Art shall be!

Many are waiting for it, some live from it, others long for it. But because some things are still precarious in social dealings, there will be no exhibition opening in the Faculty Library of Theology for the time being. Instead, we begin with a painting on Ash Wednesday by the artist. You can find it here virtually and, of course, in the art aisle of the Faculty Library. There another picture(object) will be added week by week, at least until Easter. Also on this page you can follow the growing expression and variety of the artistic work.

Anne Lückl received her training in painting at the Ortweinschule in Graz and was artistically active in Neuchâtel in Western Switzerland for four years before settling in Graz as a freelance artist. Her works can be seen not only in exhibitions; her presence in public space (destination: Endstation Andritz) is a central concern of hers. The technically diverse works - drawings, painting, collage, partial sculpture on canvas and paper - focus in interest on the human being. In it, it is less about its image, but about her / his abysses, shallows and longings.

A poem by Kurt Marti, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday at the end of January, closes a circle on the theme of time, memory and recollection:

In the beginning was the future. Then memories piled up. In the end, forgetting clears up.