Measures of Reality

With a nod to Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Measuring the World (2005), this exhibition invites audiences to explore artistic approaches to categorization as a fundamental tool of the natural sciences and hence also to how we impose order on our environment and perceptions. The title remains true to the concept of cartographic measurement while shifting it to a more abstract level. “Measure” refers to the mathematical and geographic dimension; “reality,” on the other hand, picks up on the idea of art as a subjective act of “charting” the world and how it is perceived, one that also includes the referential framework of aesthetics. Without any pretension to comprehensiveness, the exhibition is designed to encourage visitors to delve into the multifaceted interpretation of scientific strategies of mapping space, time, and form.

The exhibition presents works by Magda Csutak, Wolfgang Denk, David Eisl, Gunda Gruber, Thomas Hörl, Wassily Kandinsky, Erika Giovanna Klien, Josef Reisenbichler, Markus Schinwald, Curt Stenvert, Victor Vasarely and more.