Insects
The Room for Artistic Intervention at the Kunsthistorisches Museum will be used by artist Lisa Huber in 2020. She is dedicating the room installation to the theme of "insects" - a reference to the insect collection in the Abbey's Natural History Museum, and not just by chance. This is not the first time Huber's paper cuts have appeared at Admont Abbey; one of her early works is already part of the museum's own collection.
The space - artistic intervention
The Space for Artistic Intervention in the Kunsthistorisches Museum has proved its worth over the years. A space of resonant relationships, a special place for dialogue between the sacred and the profane, the expected and the unexpected. Transformations and processes. The artists invited so far have surprised us time and again - with their incredibly multi-layered and complex artistic solutions in their references to the active Admont Abbey with its more than 945 years of cultural memory.
In the 2020 season, the room will be decorated with paper cut-outs on the theme of "Insects" by the artist Lisa Huber. Attentive visitors will immediately realise that this room installation refers to the insect collection of 252,000 insects in Fr Gabriel Strobl's Stiftisches Naturhistorisches Museum.
Chronology of artistic interventions:
Franz Graf (2003), Ingeborg Strobl (2004), Markus Wilfling (2005), Norbert Trummer (2006), Thomas Baumann and Martin Kaltner (2007), Stefan Emmelmann (2008), Wilhelm Scherübl (2009), Werner Reiterer (2010), Karl Leitgeb (2011), Hannelore Demel-Lerchster (2012), Emil Siemeister (2013/14), Götz Bury (2015/16), Carola Willbrand (2017/18), Daniel Zimmermann (2019), Lisa Huber (2020).
THE ARTIST - LISA HUBER
Having previously worked primarily with large woodcuts, Lisa Huber began using a new technique in 2004: paper cutting. The reason for this was a serious accident and subsequent rehabilitation. During this phase, the artist began to assemble small copperplate papers of different sizes into large-format works using paper tape. These formed the background for paper cuts laid over them. The motif for the numerous paper cuts that followed can be found in the "Rhinocerus", a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer from 1515. Lisa Huber's early paper cut work based on this, a large-format rhinoceros from 2004, is also in the monastery's collection.
Some time ago, Lisa Huber also looked for animal motifs in the Admont Abbey Library. She found a source of inspiration here in an edition of Conrad Gessner's (1516-1565) "Thierbuch" from 1669 (Historia animalium, 1551-1558). This presents a veritable treasure trove of numerous animals that are now considered mythical creatures, such as the unicorn, which Lisa Huber then realised in a magnificent artistic manner. The paper cut-outs are constructed from several layers of wax paper, one on top of the other. Depending on the placement, displacement and density of the layers, their transparency enables the artist to create virtuoso light and shadow effects, surface and depth effects.
In her depiction, Lisa Huber is not interested in naturalistic closeness but, following the historical models, in abstraction, schematisation and, last but not least, ornamentalisation. Another paper cut from 2005 by Lisa Huber can be seen in the staircase between the ground floor and the first floor of the museum - a larger-than-life crocodile measuring a massive 3.7 metres in length.
Artist: Lisa Huber
Curated by: Michael Braunsteiner
