Exhibition in Steyr

Barbara Mungenast: Beauty in the digital world

Barbara Mungenast with her works(Bild: Zwefo)

The Kunstraum Pohlhammer in Steyr is a good address for contemporary art from the supra-regional scene. From February 8, the designer and artist Barbara Mungenast (Vienna) will be showing works on the cutting edge: oil painting meets AI-generated images. Everything revolves around role constraints, ideals of beauty - and how they can be severely disrupted.

"As a child of the sixties, I grew up in Steyr completely analog," says Barbara Mungenast. Today, she is a well-known Austrian designer who comes from Upper Austria but lives in Vienna. And she has long been at home in the digital world.

She is returning to Steyr for a "home game" and exhibiting works at Kunstraum Pohlhammer that span an arc from traditional art into the future.

(Bild: Barbara Mungenast)

Self-optimization and beauty
Under the title "Optimize me", she presents paintings in classic techniques such as oil, ink or watercolour and works generated with the help of AI. Why are you interested in this tension? "Today I'm constantly available, surfing the net and buying online. I belong to the first 'semi-digital generation'. Our children are already 100% digital. This gives rise to exciting differences and questions."

In terms of content, Mungenast takes up another controversial topic in the exhibition at Kunstraum Pohlhammer: The trend towards self-optimization in a world of clicks and buys. Or she devotes herself to ideals of beauty, shopping queens, which she sensitively disturbs through blurring or deconstruction.

 Overall, however, Mungenast finds a colorful, highly aesthetic and at the same time critical visual language - unique, visionary, impressive.

Info: Kunstraum Pohlhammer, Steyr; Vernissage: February 8, 10.30h. Exhibition duration until March 15.