Kunsthaus Bregenz is presenting Anna Jermolaewa this summer

Featured on the ground floor will be major works by the next Austrian Biennale representative from the KUB collection

Over the summer months, Kunsthaus Bregenz is presenting works by Anna Jermolaewa. KUB is closely associated with the artist—Austria’s next Venice Biennale participant—as several of her main works are part of the Kunsthaus Bregenz collection. A preview of the show and a conversation between Jermolaewa and KUB Director Thomas D. Trummer will be held on July 10 at 6.30 pm. The opening of the KUB summer exhibition Michael Armitage will take place on July 14 at 7 pm. Both exhibitions will be on view from July 15 to October 29, 2023.

“We are delighted to offer our audience a foretaste of the 2024 Venice Biennale already this summer with a showing of important works by Anna Jermolaewa from our collection,” announced KUB Director Thomas D. Trummer.

Kunsthaus Bregenz is closely associated with the artist. In recent years, several of her main works have been acquired for the KUB collection. One of them is Chernobyl Safari, a highly topical piece about the wildlife in the contaminated zone of Chernobyl. In 2014 and again in 2021, Jermolaewa went on a photo-and-video safari in the restricted area. She subsequently created drawings of the animals that didn’t wander into the photo-and-video traps she had installed there. A few of the drawings allude to rumors about deformed “radioactive” creatures. A mixture of fantasy and reality, Chernobyl Safari shows a paradise for animals in a habitat that has been abandoned by humans—a paradise that was destroyed by the Russian invasion in February 2022 and left mined by the Russian military after it withdrew. The restricted zone thus became a war zone. Jermolaewa recently succeeded in recovering some of the imagery that was recorded by the wildlife cameras in February and March 2022. These current recordings will be on view in Bregenz for the first time.

The subject of war bookends the works that Jermolaewa will be showing in Bregenz. Her 2017 installation piece Dining Room makes it clear how people deal with war and its vestiges: from 1964 to 1973 the United States dropped over two million tons of bombs over Laos. Many of the bombs still lie buried as unexploded ordnance in the country’s soil. In a village outside of Phonsavan in Laos, residents have begun to produce and sell cutlery created from defused bombs. Dining Room is a dining room installation with cutlery made from these American duds. This work has never been shown in Austria before.

Famous Pigeons, from 2021, portrays eight carrier pigeons that were employed in different wars in the twentieth century. The work addresses the fact that it is often animals that are on the front lines of wars.

“Jermolaewa, who came to Austria as a Russian dissident in 1989, explores political issues in history and in the present in her diverse work,” Thomas D. Trummer explains. “Her political commentary is as astute as it is humorous.” In 2022 Jermolaewa was awarded the Dr. Karl Renner Prize from the City of Vienna for her social commitment as a member of the association Ariadne: Wir Flüchtlinge für Österreich (Ariadne: We Refugees for Austria).

On July 10 at 6.30 pm a preview of the exhibition and a conversation between Anna Jermolaewa and KUB Director Thomas D. Trummer will be held. The opening of the KUB summer exhibition Michael Armitage will take place on July 14 at 7 pm. Both exhibitions will be on view from July 15 to October 29, 2023.

You are cordially invited!

KUB Collection
Anna Jermolaewa
15 | 07 – 29 | 10 | 2023

Preview and conversation with Anna Jermolaewa and Thomas D. Trummer
Monday, July 10, 6.30 pm
Free Admission!

The exhibition will be open regularly beginning July 15.