The members of this group “C4 Architekten“ – Max Fohn, Helmut Pfanner, Karl Sillaber and the Tyrolian Friedrich Wengler – are considered the pioneers of the new building style. Their first project, the primary school of Nüziders (1960–63) is a key project of modern school design in Vorarlberg, which was followed by several other new school buildings (Hasenfeld/Lustenau primary school, HAK Bregenz secondary commercial school, Nenzing comprehensive school). The single and multi-family houses, office and industrial buildings as well as indoor and outdoor swimming pools that were built in their common creative period from 1960 until 1979 in Tyrol and Vorarlberg are less well known. These are all important examples of modern architecture, which are shown in the first monographic exhibition on the work of the C4 architects and in the accompanying catalogue.

In cooperation with the Architekturzentrum Wien.

What frightens you? Where do you feel safe? Who or what protects you? The strategies to deal with dangers have changed over time. Our ancestors started to secure slopes and regulate streams and rivers, they founded fire brigades, insurance companies and the police force who have always been, and still are, monitoring compliance with the rules. Meanwhile, the greatest threat to mankind seems to be man himself – climatic disasters, wars, the pandemic. Safety is primarily built on trust – formerly in the good Lord, today in the government. How safe do you feel? Come and explore this exhibition … at your own risk.

With the support of  Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur,  öffentlicher Dienst und Sport, Vorarlberger Landes-Versicherung V.a.G, Josko Fenster & Türen GmbH and ÖWD.

During the last years of his life, the Atlantic Ocean in southern Spain and its surroundings nearby count among the central artistic themes of the Vorarlberg painter Heinz Greissing. He created intensive images of the wild sea – in the colours of the light changing from morning to night, along with the rising and falling of the tide, and the foaming waves from greyish-green to almost black during a storm. Greissing depicts the ever-changing light conditions and constant movement in the stripe paintings that are typical of him. The exhibition also features large-sized paintings without stripes, which radiate the calm and seemingly endless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. If strong winds prevented him from painting on the beach, the artist turned to the pines and Scotch pines in the nearby surroundings. The sea, the trees, his last paintings – they all pay tribute to a great painter who died in May 2020 at the age of 87.

For 35 years, the Tyrolean artist Nino Malfatti has been painting and drawing nothing else but mountains. His works are not suited for tourism promotion. The artist, who was born in 1940 in Innsbruck and has already participated in the Kassel Documenta, is not concerned with the idyllic scenery. He is interested in the changing light conditions and shadow projections, the spatial-atmospheric impact of the mountains. On his hikes, the excellent mountaineer, in a traditional old-fashioned manner, sketches and takes photographs of the mountains’ vaults, structures, outcrops, colours and rock formations. Based on these sketches and photographs, he paints the landscapes in his Berlin studio. 90 mountain views from Tyrol and Vorarlberg, some of them large-sized, are shown in the largest Malfatti exhibition ever, extending over the atrium’s total height of 23 meters.

In five chapters, the exhibition spans a bridge between “the mountains” – the main focus of the collection – and eight artistic positions created during the “SilvrettAtelier2020”, a two-week art workshop held in the Silvretta mountain range in Montafon. The selected works pick out the mountain as an idol whose inaccessibility is captured, at least in the image. The central themes are places where people long to be, peak victories, but also interference with nature by tourism. The exhibition features views of well-known Alpinists in the mountains, classical Land art projects, humorous reproductions of famous peaks as “mountains to go“ or photographic panoramas of our domesticated high-Alpine landscape. The exhibits are documented in a catalogue.

What we playfully imagined when we were kids becomes a very real issue later: the idea of our own four walls – their location, dimension, appearance, furnishing. Most of us take a home for granted and do not give fundamental thought to it – something that might change when we are forced to stay at home, and even more so if, all of a sudden, you no longer have a roof over your head. This small exhibition in five showcases asks questions, in passing, concerning the ideal home, based on a selection of historical doll houses and works made by Vorarlberg artists.