Christmas Exhibition

It has been a tradition for 16 years: before Christmas, the Infeld Haus der Kultur in Halbturn presents contemporary artists. Currently, oil and acrylic paintings, mixed media, watercolors and prints by the following artists are exhibited: 

Günter Costazza

Benedetto Fellin

Michael Fuchs

Hanno Karlhuber 

The opening weekend (Sat. and Sun., 26 and 27 November from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) provides a great opportunity to meet the artists Benedetto Fellin, Michael Fuchs and Hanno Karlhuber personally and become familiar with their hyper-realistic imagery in a relaxed atmosphere.

Günter Costazza (1936-2013)

Günter Costazza (1936-2013) has had a long friendship with the Infeld family of collectors. Born in Germany, he moved 1962 to Vienna and became a scene painter at the Staatsoper. From 1982-1996 he was senior theater painter, from 1987 head of the painter halls of the Austrian federal theater. In the first years in Vienna he worked intensively with oil paintings and presented his works in Austria and Germany. The exhibition "50 Years Dada" (1965) presented Costazza together with Paul Klee, René Magritte and Salvadore Dali.

He found his motifs in the area of the microcosm, he painted bizarre still lives, anatomized the human being and life in general. Works from the surrealist period can also be seen in the Infeld Haus der Kultur. From 1998 on, he devoted himself to the oldest painting technique of mankind - watercolors. His favorite motifs - Mediterranean landscapes and ports - are exhibited in Halbturn.

Benedetto Fellin

Born in South Tyrol, Benedetto Fellin learned the the technique of complementary-color painting, which is his preferred technique, in Vienna under Rudolf Hausner. The viewer encounters fantastic, surreal-looking worlds, where in a real way the peculiarities of people, cultures and landscapes are depicted in tangible contexts.

"I am fascinated by this path leading from a Buddhist world of ideas to a self-defined religiosity," wrote Peter Infeld. He was thrilled by the willingness of Fellin to insert the old masters’ technique into dimensions of unknown creative expression. Peter Infeld accompanied Benedetto Fellin’s work for decades as a friend and art collector, and as self-critical finder of his true self. At the Infeld Haus der Kultur, Fellin is exhibiting oil paintings from the past five years as well as prints.

Michael Fuchs

Born in Paris, Michael Fuchs grew up in the United States. He completed his painting studies in Vienna under his father, Ernst Fuchs, and Anton Lehmden and also obtained a degree in architecture from Gustav Peichl.

Michael Fuchs regards art as a mirror image of our existence, as a reflection of our innermost being. At the same time, art is a window to a world of faith, to God's kingdom. "From the creator we go forth and receive our being. Therefore, the world of art that we create is also a gift from Him to us. The gift of His tender love,” explains Michael Fuchs. His primary focus is portraiture, and he considers the human face the pinnacle of creation. At the exhibition at the Infeld Haus der Kultur, Michael Fuchs shows oil paintings and etchings.

Hanno Karlhuber

Hanno Karlhuber was born in Germany. He studied painting under Rudolf Hausner in Vienna.

For the past six years, he spends six months out of every year in Thailand on the edge of the National Park Sam Roi Yod, 250 km south of Bangkok.  As a romantic, Karlhuber sees the scenery there with his own particular focus; its main theme is "impact of people in the countryside.”

Not the kitschy postcard perspective but the current reality is reflected in his work. Together with his wife, Karlhuber lives among fishermen and farmers, and notes that the impact of people on nature is here also clearly noticeable and leaves "painful interventions" in nature. In his works, he represents the "wounded landscape." In addition to works from Thailand, landscapes of the Burgenland region are also exhibited in Halbturn.