Constructed Nature – Exhibition

11.06–31.10.26 Kaiserliche Stallungen Bad Ischl/ Access via Götz-Straße

CURATOR'S GUIDED TOUR with Sara Tröster Klemm Thu, 11.06.26, 16:00 | Sat, 31.10.26, 16:00

Nature is often regarded as the opposite of culture – as primordial and untouched. Yet this distinction has long since fallen short: nature is observed, measured, used, protected, threatened. And staged. It no longer appears as an immediate given, but rather exists in a state of constant mediation. This is where the exhibition *Constructed Nature* takes its starting point.

The animal depictions by Dana Meyer, Nelly Schmücking, and Matthias Garff present the animal not as a mere motif but as a counterpart. It becomes a mirror of our perception and our responsibility toward the living. The exhibition venue Bad Ischl amplifies this question. The scenically idyllic Salzkammergut is simultaneously a natural and cultural space, historically shaped by exploitation, aestheticization, and appropriation – visible, for instance, in the Kaiservilla with its hunting trophies. Here, nature always appears as a designed and interpreted reality.

The three artistic positions reveal this construction in different ways: Meyer's steel sculptures combine hardness with living tension, Schmücking's works condense anatomical precision into an aesthetic "equivalent" of the animal, and Garff creates from found objects fragile, haunting creatures of an environment shaped by humans. Thus, a space emerges in which the relationship between humans and animals is renegotiated.

*Constructed Nature* shows that nature is not a counterworld outside of us, but always part of a cultural fabric – and therefore also an expression of our responsibility for the world we help shape.

Curated by Sara Tröster Klemm