Garden of Eden - Group exhibition at Neuhaus Castle

St. Martin im Mühlkreis

A Garden of Eden is a place of longing - a place where people live in harmony with nature, cautiously using existing resources and living peacefully. It is a utopia, a garden full of lush plants, sweet fruits and exotic animals that provide food in abundance. Such a paradise nourishes our elemental desire for harmonious coexistence in the community while at the same time embodying the principle of exclusion. The notion contains a longing for something that is ever valid as well as the experience of transience and fragility of life.
The idea of the garden in Eden is thousands of years old and finds expression in various forms of human culture in ever new variants. Even textiles were and are still important carriers of this complex topic. As an inspiration, the motto of the Garden of Eden offers material for an exhibition of a special kind:

In the course of the summer symposium TEXTILE KULTUR HASLACH and the concurrent ETN (European Textile Network) Conference, tenders for an international group exhibition on this topic were invited, which will show the works of contemporary textile artists. A total of 452 submissions were received, from which a panel of experts selected the best works.

The jury consisted of the following persons:

Beatrijs Sterk (NL(DE), founder of ETN and longtime editor of the textilforum magazine
Paola Re (IT), curator and organizer of the Miniartextil in Como, Italy
Marga Persson (SE/AT), tapestry artist and longtime director of the department of textile studies at Kunstuniversität Linz
Christina Leitner and Andreas Selzer (AT), management team of the Textile Center Haslach, curators and organizers of the ETN Conference in July 2019 in Haslach

The selected works are very different in terms of the techniques and materials used and deal with the "Garden of Eden" in very different ways, resulting in a diverse view of the subject. In addition to the juried works, some well-known artists were personally invited to participate in the exhibition. The exhibition will open up a broad overview of current trends in the field of contemporary textile art and will present a total of 90 works by artists from 34 nations.

A visit to the exhibition will also be worthwhile because of its special location: Neuhaus castle is an impressive building high above the Danube. The narrow, four-storey section of the building from the Gothic period, fascinates with its atmospheric rooms, and not least because of its unique location overlooking the meandering Danube and the foothills of the Mühlviertel, a place that enchants and lets the time stand still.

The wonderful rooms provide the ideal setting and the perfect atmosphere for presenting textile art – being gently in accord with the historic masonry and the particularly strong environment. A small piece of the Garden of Eden ...

Venue:
Neuhaus Castle, Neuhaus an der Donau, 4114 St. Martin im Mühlkreis
The exhibition can not be visited barrier-free.

Duration of the exhibition:
July 17 - August 4, 2019

Opening:
Wednesday, July 17, 19:30