Courtship

The new exhibition in the Infeld House of Culture is dedicated to courtship and the depiction of lovers. Sweet dreams, unfulfilled passions, tender approaches, tender romance and passionate affairs - the love of human life is so varied, as varied are the artistic approaches to this popular topic.

Love directly affects all, everyone has personal experiences. The ancient poet Ovid writes: "There are a hundred reasons why I'm always in love." How people love, depends on their personality, luck and destiny. The invented stories add to the experience. Artists try to comprehend love by way of drawings and paintings.

The variations on love exhibited in the Infeld House of Culture range from biblical depictions of the world-renowned universal artist Ernst Fuchs ("Samson and Delilah") to the anarchistic-erotic productions by the German artist Hans Bellmer, a master of erotic imagery.

Hesitant approaches and elegant lovers are the subject of the the writer and artist Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando and Wolfgang Hutter, the painter in love with the endless variations of colors. The willingness to balance closeness and distance in a marriage is are discernible in the gouache "The betrothed" by the father of the Vienna School of fantastic realism, Albert Paris Gütersloh. Human love seems possible in everyday life in the long run. Loyalty, solidarity, security, are painted by Mara Puskaric Petras and Nada Svegovic Budaj, both representatives of the Croatian naive style.

Pop art representatives such as Allen Jones and Sandro Chia show pairs during their affectionate amusements, representatives of Art Brut from Gugging (Oswald Tschirtner and Josef Bachler) implement in their drawings chaste lovers and those joyously embracing their senses. Passionate relationships by Alfred Hrdlicka ("Yvonne as a couple") and erotic watercolors "Sailor love" by Otto Rodolf treasure complement the show.

Romantic and tragic, often rather funny, dreams and urges, power and powerlessness of lovers are mirrored in the human art work and are encoded morally and culturally. The works exhibited in the Infeld House of Culture in Halbturn, all from the Infeld collection, were created in the last century and can be seen until 06 November 2016 with free admission.