Niche Sculptures

The MuseumsQuartier, originally built as the imperial court stables, is one of the major works of the Baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. To mark the commemorative year 300 Years of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, the MuseumsQuartier is initiating a special art project.

The two Austrian artists TillmanKaiser and Sonia Leimer were invited to respond to the baroque façade design with artistic interventions. The artistic practices of the two artists have led them to very different sculptural solutions for the niches.

Tillman Kaiser’s artistic work is characterised by the interaction between techniques and forms, which are taken from painting, photography, sculpture and architecture. He describes his own works as collages that open up spaces for a wide range of associations – from nature to science fiction. His geometric forms appear to develop from the niches themselves, taking the existing architecture as their constitutive context. Kaiser has taken the horizontal banding that runs along the facade – and also through the niches – as the point of contact for his works. His sculptures attach themselves to the niches at these points, forming a connection with the very structure of the building itself. The symmetry of the facade finds its counterpart in that of the sculptures. The repeating forms lend rhythm to the work. “My strict geometric forms are not the product of complicated calculations. Rather they emerge organically during the working process, like the growth of a plant, which develops in strict accordance with its genetic blueprint, and yet still adapts to its surroundings,” explains the artist on the process.Following their own internal logic, his sculptures have taken root in the niches as stylised organic forms. Made from shaped, white stainless steel, these secretive and abstract blooms have latched on to the architecture and are growing out from the Baroque facade.

Sonia Leimer creates sculptures, videos and installations that move between real places and imaginary contexts. A key theme of her work is space: both “urban space” and “outer space”. Her transformations of spaces and objects that arose in concrete, historical contexts seek to make history and social change tangible.The sculptural works with the title “Placeholder” are made of aluminium and are part of an ongoing series of the same name that began in 2010. These sculptures serve as symbolic markers of gaps, temporarily reserving a (physical) space and holding it open. The “placeholders” are self-contained, self-referential variables that articulate the codes of the space and the material. For her work at the MuseumsQuartier, Sonia Leimer chose aluminium: sculpture and architecture merge within its mirrored materiality, which simultaneously reflects the surrounding area.„The use of empty space as a material for a sculpture opens up new ways of seeing the space itself. By using the volume of the empty space to define the form of the sculpture, that space itself becomes part of the artwork and new perspectives open up on the relationship between space and form. The sculpture is not only a positive object that fills space, but shows the presence of space as such“, remarks Sonia Leimer.

Tillman Kaiser was born in 1972 in Graz and studied with Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Hubert Schmalix at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. His works have been exhibited at international venues including the Consortium Museum, Dijon (2022); Belvedere 21, Vienna (2021); Saatchi Gallery, London (2019); Secession, Vienna (2019); Villa Borghese, Rome (2016); and the Kunsthalle Krems Factory, Krems (2013).

Sonia Leimer was born in 1977 in Merano, Italy, and studied architecture at the Vienna Technical University and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Nasrine Seraji, Joost Meuwissen and Odile Decq. She has exhibited internationally at events such as the 4th Industrial Art Biennale in Pula, Croatia (2023); the Lofoten Art Festival (2022); the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2021); the Vladivostok Biennale of Visual Art (2017); the Moscow Biennale in Russia (2013 and 2015); and Manifesta 7 in Rovereto, Italy (2008). Selected solo exhibitions include the Charles Jencks Foundation in London (2024); the Neue Kunstverein in Vienna (2022); Museion Bolzano, Italy (2020/21); MAN in Nuoro, Italy (2020); ISCP, New York (2019); and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California (2014).

As part of an invited competition organized by the MuseumsQuartier, the following artists have designed art projects for the niches: Tillman Kaiser, Luisa Kasalicky, Markus Hanakam & Roswitha Schuller, Sonia Leimer, and Russell Maltz. A jury of experts selected two projects—those by Tillman Kaiser and Sonia Leimer—for implementation.

Idea: Bettina Leidl
Jury: Andreas Fogarasi, Karola Kraus, Bettina Leidl, Mona Hahn, Cornelia Offergeld
Curators: Verena Kaspar-Eisert und Simon Mraz
Production: Maria Stephan, MuseumsQuartier Wien