For the finale of our 2024 exhibition season, another highlight awaits you at the galerie gugging with “curated by sara kay”. Look forward to drawings and sculptures by artist & philosopher Maria Bussmann and Gugging Artist Jürgen Tauscher – selected by New York curator Sara Kay.
The galerie gugging has always tried to break new ground with innovative ideas to make the Gugging Artists more visible. In 2017, the curated by series was launched, which started with curated by johann garber and will enter its fourth round this fall with curated by sara kay, following Daniel Spoerri and Scottish fashion designer Christopher Kane. Here, personalities are given the opportunity to curate their own exhibition with works by the Gugging Artists with the intention of creating new perspectives.
The renowned New York-based curator and former gallery director Sara Kay exhibited the Gugging Artist Oswald Tschirtner alongside Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet and James Castle at the legendary Jan Krugier Gallery in New York City already back in 2008, impressively demonstrating the extent to which the Gugging Artists are already established and integrated in an international context. It was at this exhibition – entitled “Tension Invention Intoxication and Liberty: Victor Hugo to Martín Ramírez” – that Kay met galerie gugging director Nina Katschnig and a friendship developed. Sara Kay says of their first meeting:
“Nina visited the exhibition and we quickly got talking about our shared passions for art, art brut artists, feminism, and the spiritual world. Today, Maria Bussmann& Jürgen Tauscher: Feminist Philosophies and Flying Objects is our first joint project, which will hopefully be followed by many more.”
The artist Maria Bussmann, who is exhibiting at the galerie gugging for the first time, also has a long-standing friendship with the curator. Bussmann was born in Würzburg, Germany, studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg and then moved to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1989. She received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1999. Since then, the artist has dedicated herself to the intersection of philosophy and drawing. Her work has been inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Baruch de Spinoza, Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, among others. Bussmann’s drawings are an attempt to translate thoughts into complex pictorial systems, often arranged in series. In addition, the artist creates small sculptures, often depicting landscapes, glaciers, waterfalls, or forest groups inspired by nature, which will also be on display in curated by sara kay. Maria Bussmann lives in Vienna & New York, teaches as a lecturer at the Institute for Art Theory and supervises the lecture series Art – Research – Gender at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
The second artist in our fall exhibition is Jürgen Tauscher. During Sara Kay’s first visit to Gugging in January 2022, she came across the work of the Gugging Artist and was fascinated by his: “imaginative, spirited, coordinated drawings and whimsical, technically savvy flying objects.” Tauscher’s drawings are reminiscent of the poetic lines of Cy Twombly and the surrealist worlds of Yves Tanguy and transport the viewer into a magical exosphere.Jürgen Tauscher, who celebrated his 50th birthday this year, has lived in the House of Artists in Gugging since 2012. The lively chatterbox is enthusiastic about technology, action, adventure & science fiction, so spaceships, airplanes & helicopters have become the preferred main themes of his oeuvre.
There is no question that curated by sara kay promises to be an exciting symbiosis and the perfect finale to our 30th anniversary of the galerie gugging. Our guest curator sums it up as follows:
“The drawings and objects by Bussmann and Tauscher are two distinct visual voices that together create a perfect pitch – filled with sensitivity, creativity, imagination and contemplation. In this place where their lines come together both on paper and in space, their biographies fall away and what we are left with is coherence, beauty, a little humor, and a lot of humanity.”
We have nothing more to add.
