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My Vienna: Austrian artist Julia Bugram
Above/featured: The artist in their workspace in Vienna. Photo, 11 Jul 2025 (X70).
The sculpture provided the introduction in 2022.
Two clasped hands, each as tall as a person. Each hand made with 1-million 1-Eurocent coins.
Seen in 2022, next to St. Stephan’s Cathedral. Seen next in 2023, the sculpture moved near the big fountain at Schwarzenbergplatz. A wonderful crowdfunded project, created by Austrian artist Julia Bugram.
In spring 2025, I receive a kind invitation to visit her studio in Vienna; come July and I’m in the city’s 5th district. I make my way up to the 2nd floor of a renovated pre-war building, and arrive at a cozy working art-space shared between Julia and a second artist. I’m not surprised to find tall ceilings, big windows, a small kitchen, and just enough space and storage for two artists to share and split the rent.
In her practice, Julia explores themes surrounding community and society; and how art can create, enhance, and strengthen connections among people. Her artistic influences include: Hilma af Klimt, Mela Diamant, Renate Bertlmann, Margot Pilz, Jakob Lena Knebl, Martha Jungwirth. We spoke at some length about the economic and cultural challenges facing contemporary Austrian artists in the creation and distribution of their work, as well as the difficulty of commuting between Vienna and her home in Burgenland. I’m looking forward to seeing what she’ll create in the near future.
Astronomer Johannes Kepler: birth town Weil der Stadt
Above/featured: Johannes Kepler memorial at Marktplatz in Weil der Stadt. Photo, 21 Jul 2024 (P15).
I first heard the name “Kepler” way back in high school. I had no idea “Kepler” would embody a winding trail of education, knowledge, a “first life” (career), and a deep lifelong appreciation of science. Thankfully, what’s transformed has been a “second life” opened to another world with more questions, some of which have led to unexpected places. Perhaps, the cost is a solitary quest for answers, but ultimately, my motivation has always been clear: it’s because I need to know.
In the same way Kepler, like many others before and after, looked up at night and asked a simple question: “why do stars and planets appear and move as they do in the sky?”
To the here and now, my questions begin and land on our own planet.
For example, where was Kepler born? Where is this place? Are there any traces in those spaces?
But first, who was Kepler?
Vienna Albertina: Brigitte Kowanz, light is what she saw
Above/featured: “Light is what we see”, 1994/2019. (A part of Speed of Light/4m with the digits 6-3 appears at the right edge.)
Austrian artist Brigitte Kowanz (1957–2022) held an enduring fascination for light. Light wasn’t simply the medium through which information propagated. Light itself was also a tool and mould for illumination, reflection, and even introspection. There’s something in her light-based artworks which allude not only to her philosophy and worldview, but also to her clear interest for science. Her works also anticipate and explore timely themes, including what it means to live in an information-rich society that fully embraces digital habitats and virtual spaces. There’s a spirit of fun and “lightness” mixed with a serious appreciation for the history of technology with her frequent use of Morse code. To me, Kowanz’s body of work is a wonderful manifestation of the 1964 statement by Canadian philosopher and media theorist Marshall McLuhan: “The medium is the message.”
I arranged my 2025 stay in Vienna to coincide with the final week of the Francesca Woodman exhibition and the beginning of an exhibition on Brigitte Kowanz, both held at the Albertina gallery-museum. Since Kowanz’s passing in 2022, the first major solo exhibition was a retrospective of her work titled “Light is what we see”. The Albertina has fast become a favourite, having seen an exhibition of photographer Gregory Crewdson’s work in the summer of 2024.
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