Beyond Tradition - Contemporary Exlibris - Mail Art

The Bartlhaus Writing Museum celebrates the European Capital of Culture Year with a series of exciting presentations and, as a project partner, opens the house to new perspectives and current positions from April to October 2024.

Beyond Tradition

The calligraphy exhibition plays with one of the key themes of the Capital of Culture year, tradition. It presents works by four internationally renowned calligraphers who are based on the centuries-old tradition of this art of beautiful writing, but who each transcend and develop it in a very individual way.

Marina Soria from Argentina creates calligraphies that are based on historical textiles from South America in terms of color and texture. She will be exhibiting these together with the traditional weavings. Izzy Pludwinski from Israel will be showing calligraphy that draws on the tradition of Hebrew calligraphy and looks at it from a contemporary perspective. Wissam Shawkat from Iraq, who now lives in the United Arab Emirates, is showing works from his series Kalligraforms. He creates calligraphies with Arabic characters, which he then cuts up and reassembles. This gives rise to fascinating new forms that are reminiscent of characters, but break them again and again through the cuts. American-born Brody Neuenschwander, who has lived in Belgium for many years, challenges the medium of calligraphy on several levels, approaching scriptural and conceptual art. He does not transpose existing texts, but creates his own in the process of writing, which refer to current social issues. He combines his calligraphy with painting and typography and integrates historical writings and prints as collages. The four positions can be seen in four exhibition rooms on the upper floor of the Museum of Writing.

Contemporary Exlibris

Bookplates created especially for the exhibition give a powerful sign of life to this traditional genre of printmaking.

The Bartlhaus has an important collection of bookplates. These are small printed pieces of paper that were originally stuck into books to indicate who the book belonged to. The sheets later became popular collector's items and well-known artists dedicated themselves to the medium. The Bartlhaus has been organizing changing bookplate exhibitions on various topics for 30 years. As part of the European Capital of Culture, it wants to celebrate this small form of prints with a special campaign that represents an exciting sign of life in contemporary prints and continues the history of bookplates with sophisticated current works. Around 20 artists are invited to create a bookplate for themselves in any edition using a printing technique of their choice. By selecting the artists, we try to bring together as many different printmaking techniques as possible in the exhibition. A copy of each participating artist's edition will be shown in the exhibition in the Museum of Writing and will then enter the house's collection.

Contributors

Liselotte Bittendorfer, Franz Blaas, Markus Daniel, Martin Dickinger, Therese Eisenmann, Barbara Fuchs, Lena Göbel, Martin Gredler, Inga Hehn, Hans Heis, Peter Huemer, Elisabeth Jungwirth, Hanna Kirmann, Petra Kodym, Ingo Kreutzer, Gabriele Müller, Angelika Offenhauser, Hermann Ortner, Ludwig Ortner, Alois Riedl, Annerose Riedl, Wolfgang Stifter, Helmut Swoboda, Ingrid Tragler, Heinz Vinkov, Heimo Wallner (Künstler*innen)

Mail Art

Different people are invited to write to the Bartlhaus and thereby deal with a cultural technique that is currently disappearing from our society. Visitors are invited to send Mailart from the Museum of Writing.