Kunsthalle Wien is delighted to present the first solo exhibition in Austria by the Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys.
The two artists have been working together since the 1980s and have developed a highly individual oeuvre which includes videos, sculptures, drawings, photographs and performances. They combine the banality of the everyday with a deep-reaching sense of alienation and express themselves in rigorously reduced scenarios that, through the device of repetition, question the meaningfulness of what they show us.
The exhibition that De Gruyter and Thys have developed for Kunsthalle Wien seems simultaneously hermetic and inviting. Room-dividers arranged in a grid pattern present hundreds of drawings; these display a range of motifs that seem encyclopaedic. These drawings contain images of “everything and nothing”, of objects and everyday scenes, buildings and newspaper photos.
In cooperation with the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst / M HKA, Antwerp
7 pm: Introduction by Lucas Gehrmann and Nicolaus Schafhausen
8 pm / 9 pm: The choir Chor im Hemd will perform the vocal piece Das Wunder des Lebens, which was specially composed by Erik Thys for the exhibition.
In the presence of the artists.