Eva Ursprung: The Art of Surfacing
February 7–April 19, 2026
Susanne Wenger: Àdùnní Olórìsà
Susanne Wenger is seen as a key Austrian post-1945 artist and also an early contemporary of surrealism. After spending her youth in Graz, actively resisting the Nazi regime, and training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, she traveled to Nigeria in 1950, where she lived as an artist and Òrìṣà priestess of the Yorùbá faith for nearly sixty years until her death. In the “Sacred Groves” along the river Ọ̀ṣun, she worked with the New Sacred Art Movement to create monumental sculptures, enhancing this spiritual vicinity with a total work of art. In 2005 the Sacred Ọ̀ṣun Òṣogbo Groves were declared a UNESCO world cultural heritage site. In 2024, Wenger’s work was included in the Venice Biennale curated by Adriano Pedrosa, and thus it is now finding the international acclaim it deserves. Her work includes sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, and batik textiles, transcending aesthetic categories and combining art, spirituality, and myth.
Working together with the Susanne Wenger Foundation in Krems, which has done great service to preserving the artist’s work, a selection of Wenger’s multi-facetted work is presented. At the center of this exhibition stand Wenger’s large-format textiles–batiks of intensive color that unite myths of creation, death, sacrifice, and reincarnation. Here the combination of European modernism and the Yorùbá culture is very evident, a central point of reference in Wenger’s work. In addition to the impressive presentation of textile works, the exhibition also features a collection of paintings and colored pencil drawings.
In Nigeria Susanne Wenger was known as Àdùnní Olórìṣà, an honorary name in the Yorùbá culture. The name Àdùnní means “the one you like to have around you,” while Olórìṣà denotes someone who has been initiated in the Òrìṣà divinities. This exhibition invites us to rediscover the deeply contemplative work and incredible life of Susanne Wenger/Àdùnní Olórìsà–as an artistic and spiritual legacy that is remarkably topical today.
Curated by Sandro Droschl
Eva Ursprung: The Art of Surfacing
In the exhibition The Art of Surfacing HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark presents the diverse work of the Austrian artist, musician, and curator Eva Ursprung, who received the Honorary Prize of Styria for the Fine Arts in 2024. This prize, awarded on the basis of a proposal by an external jury of experts, stands for the recognition of a lifetime’s work and is accompanied by an exhibition. Ursprung’s work combines cross-media formats with feminist, socially critical, and collaborative strategies. The central theme of this exhibition is the element of water, a material that Ursprung has repeatedly addressed over the decades in different artistic and political contexts. This element forms the basis of all life, stands for change and transformation, and also has destructive force. Water flows, creates connections, divides, and shapes, and in her work it becomes a metaphor for ecological, social, and geopolitical processes.
In her video Indigo Haven, the artist symbolically emerges from the water, providing an allegory for truths brought to light. The film work 355 Tage im Erdbunker (355 Days in the Earth Bunker) witnesses Ursprung’s intensive investigation of resistance of women during National Socialism in Styria. Projects like Survive and Mit der Post ans Meer (By Post to the Sea) explore communication, acceleration, and exchange between spaces and regions, while Garbage Patches draws attention to the fragility of the eco-system and its vulnerability due to intruders such as plastics. Of note here is the film Gewurl (Bustle), made at the Nigerian river Ọ̀ṣun, which documents Ursprung’s meeting with the Austrian artist und Òrìṣà priestess Susanne Wenger in her “Sacred Grove.”
Eva Ursprung presents herself as a critical feminist observer who gives the pressing questions of ecology, globalization, and fascism a compelling narrative across various artistic media.
Curated by Caro Feistritzer with Sandro Droschl
Press inquiries: Helga Droschl / T 0316 740084. Press download.
