Ceramics - sculpture - painting - prints

Masamichi Yoshikawa                      Lau Kwog Hung                              Elisabeth Melkonyan                               

Chikako Yoshikawa                          Margareta Langer                           Gabriela Nepo-Stieldorf

curator : Elisabeth Melkonyan

COMING TOGETHER is a dialogue between cultures of the east and the west. Austria meets Japan and China. The origin of this artistic encounter lies in a journey to Tokoname (Japan) by the artist Elisabeth Melkonyan. The paintings and photographs she created there act as a visible framework for the exhibition.

Masamichi Yoshikawa  (Japan)

"Though ceramic art requires technical, scientific methods, the act of creation is for me an act of prayer.”  Masamichi Yoshikawa's ceramics are characterised by an intense concentration on the clarity of forms, which give rise to a multifaceted diversity in their repetition. He is famous for his large spheres, which can be seen in many places in Japan.

Chikako Yoshikawa  (Japan)

The striking feature of Chikako Joshikawa's work is its humour, which distinguishes all her colourful ceramic sculpture. Extravagantly imaginative, narrative and ironic, her works transform floral and abstract elements into bizarre hybrids which suggest a joyful and sensual world.

Lau Kwog Hung  (China)

His metal sculptures are made by welding with 3000 degrees of heat. They resemble black ink drawings on paper, in the form of chinese ideographs, and remind us of the "grand design", the "lifetime project" of each human being. The interplay between solid and void points to the "transparency" which every work aims at.

Gabriela Nepo Stieldorf

Gabriela Nepo Stieldorf has staged a scene, in the form of a seating arrangement, which is centred on the duality of reality/earth, and virtuality/transparency. Human forms, mere casings made of transparent perspex, sit or kneel on clay torsos, identifiable as male or female, whose upper plane functions as seating, and is formed by the imprint of a seated bottom. The figures climb up the walls, appearing to float away through the ceiling. These transparent casings are sensed rather than seen, a fine coloured contour line distinguishes them from the white wall behind them.

Elisabeth Melkonyan

In the course of her journey, Elisabeth Melkonyan experienced some of the diversity of Japan. Her impressions are reflected in her photographs, in rubbings taken at a japanese cemetery, in sketches made during the journey and in porcelain figures. These delicate figurative representations in porcelain show repetitions of bodies - predominantly female - whose torsos are revealed layer by layer, from a diffuse form, amorphously.

Margareta Langer  

Margareta Langer exhibits a large foot made of clay... the first, or sometimes the last step in an encounter. Her female figure is a direct contrast to the slim little figures of Elisabeth Melkonyan - it is shown from head to foot in all its abundant solidity. Unglazed and immediate, its clearly perceptible reality is most convincing. 

COMING TOGETHER   I : duration: 5. - 27. März 2008 

 With works by Chikako Yoshikawa, Masamichi Yoshikawa, Elisabeth Melkonyan, Gabriela Nepo-Stieldorf, Lau Kwog Hung und Margareta Langer

COMING TOGETHER  II : duration: 2. - 13. April 2008

An exhibition of works made by LAU KWOG HUNG, CHIKAKO und MASAMICHI YOSHIKAWA working with pupils of various schools:

Kath. BAKIP; HS Kettenbrücke; KORG Kettenbrücke; BORG Innsbruck; BRG APP; BRG für Berufstätige Meinhardinum Stams

Hofburgausstellung- Masamichi Yoshikawa- exhibition at the imperial castle

Hofburgausstellung- Lau Kwog Hung, „house“  exhibition at the imperial castle

Hofburgausstellung- M. + Ch.Yoshikawa  watching works from E. Melkonyan - exhibition at the imperial castle

Hofburgausstellung- Nepo-Stieldorf and E.Melkonyan- exhibition at the imperial castle