Group Exhibition_Nëif

03.12 - 10.01.23

Opening: Saturday 3rd December 2022 at 5 p.m. in the Vijion Art Gallery

The exhibition remains open from 5th December 2022 to the 10th of January 2023

Monday to Saturday from 4pm to 7pm, or on appointment: +39 338 2098697

The exhibition "Nëif" (snow), illustrates an art that takes snow-covered landscapes as its subject. The image of glistening peaks and alpine pastures covered in whiteness has changed fundamentally through the ages, between mythical narrative, romantic longing and modern consciousness. The exhibition focuses on works from the early 20th century to the present.

The constant desire for the distant, sky-touching white heights seems akin to the longing for a possible pending exploration. From the enlightenment-revolutionary age to the present day, the white peaks, shining and luminous, have been the subject of passionate painting. In permanent revolutionary transformation, they are constantly reimagined, constructed and painterly transformed in altered consciousness.

The landscapes of the high mountains that were staged in the 19th century can no longer be experienced as their painters saw them due to the changes caused by climate change and the tourism industry. Today's paintings confront us with what we are losing with climate change, the disappearance of the glaciers and the melting of the white heights. The dissonance, however, creates a sharpened, perhaps heightened longing of this former reality.

The fantastic, sensual and reflective imagery of the present awakens in us a higher consciousness to reflect on political and ecological processes and the exploitation of the earth. The white mountain peaks that once held so many anxieties and deeply embedded mythical narratives are now, frighteningly, crowded with existential fears of their own.

Contemporary art continues to demonstrate the complex aesthetic power of the snow-covered landscape. Its vital force is preserved in enduring, renewing visual imaginaries of modernity.

The exhibition "Snow", in addition to being a visual experience, is an awareness-raising approach to the current reality; a call to protect our natural habitats.

Exhibiting artists: Raphael Thaler, Jean-Jaques Berne Bellecour, L. Bonelli, A. Kabinger, Carlo Costantino Tagliabue, Alessandro Catalani, Erwin Kettemann, Hans B. Baier, Rudolf Emil Klöden, Richard Klinger, Hermann Hegnauer, Otavia Demetz, Julius Gold, Karl Kren, Marie Rollé, Hans K. Baier, Gino Deserò, Fritz Osswald, Josef Kneuttinger, Silvia De Bastiani, Gregor Prugger, Robert Zinner, Rudolf Emil Klöden, Elisabeth Frei, Thaddäus Salcher, Martin Pohl, Leonhard Angerer and Gino Alberti.