Graz Kunsthaus

The Graz Art Gallery by the Mur River has a very unusual shape.

Model of the Kunsthaus Graz which stands outside the gallery

As with most European art galleries, there is an entry fee (8 Euro in Graz) and I always wonder how many more people would visit if the galleries were free as they are in Australasia. They might attract people who thought they were not particularly interested in art, especially on a wet day like Saturday. Instead I was one of a select very few who were wandering around the exhibits.

The first floor was given over to media art, a very crowded floor of media screens none of which captured my attention for more than 5 seconds. Media art can be wonderful, but just because things move doesn't mean they are interesting.

The work on show on the top level with those odd shaped window-tubes was much more interesting and worth the eight Euro entry fee. Chinese artist Liu Xiaodong, who had done a four month residency in Austria, was showing work created in Austria and back home in China. His paintings were very large and naturalistic but all of them were worth looking at. They were mostly simple scenes of people talking or looking, set against a backdrop of their locality but somehow they made you think up stories to fit them and I found myself going back to have another look at several.

Paintings by Liu Xia0dong. The round tube windows are a feature of the building.

The tube windows on the 3rd floor are unusual and the space is a bit awkward with few internal walls (or perhaps the internal walls had been taken out for this show) but that didn't detract from the paintings.

Liu had also made movies showing his method of working. I found them much more interesting than the media downstairs. The one I watched was a 38 minute movie about a horse market in China.

Screen showing movie of the work habits of Liu.

It showed the market, how Liu chatted with the peasants to see what was going on, how he sketched and then transferred his sketches onto large canvases. He had quite a few young helpers and my impression was that they helped not only with the set up and transfer of sketches but also with the painting.

At the top of the gallery there is a glassed-in balcony where you can look over the bridge crossing the River Mur to the city beyond. The river was turbulent and still the rain fell.

Graz, viewed from the top of the Kunsthaus