Martha Jungwirth and Eva Schlegel are bound to each other by their passion for Asia. A multifaceted and impressive serie of works resulted from Martha Jungwirth’s trip to Cambodia and Indonesia. Eva Schlegel’s participation in the Kochi Biennial 2016 was an important event to reflect on her past examination of this heterogeneous continent. Both artists reflect on their personal relationship to this landscape, culture and art.

Martha Jungwirth (born in Vienna in 1940) studied at the University of Applied Arts of Vienna in the class of Prof. Carl Unger. She taught in the same school between 1967 and 1977 and later at the International Summer Academy in 1991 and the Summer Academy in Berlin in 1992.

Martha Jungwirth’s passions are traveling and watercolor painting. In her case, they are closely connected. Jungwirth’s works have nothing representational about them. They do not aim at reproducing visible reality, and yet they are far more than free variations or fantasies on a given theme. Jungwirth paints neither reality nor after reality; she paints her reaction to reality

Some of her major solo and group exhibitions include: Rendezvous – Meisterwerke aus der Sammlung Essl, Essl Museum. Kunst der Gegenwart, Klosterneuburg/Vienna, AT, 2016 (GA), Paros 2015, Galerie Krinzinger Showroom, Vienna, AT, (2016), Die achtziger Jahre in der Sammlung des MUSA, Musa, Vienna, AT (2015), (GA) Wirklichkeiten, Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus, DE, 2015 (GA), Martha Jungwirth, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, AT, (2015), Martha Jungwirth. Retrospektive, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems, AT, 2014 (EA), Drawing the Line.

Collected #3, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Wien, AT, 2012 (GA), Schönes Klosterneuburg. Albert Oehlen hängt Bilder der Sammlung Essl, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, AT, 2011 (GA), Malfluchten, Museum Moderner Kunst – Stiftung Wörlen, Passau, DE, 1999 (EA), Hausfrauenmaschinen, Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, AT, 1979 (EA), documenta 6, Fridericianum, Kassel, DE, 1977 (GA), Martha Jungwirth, Franz Ringel, Secession, Vienna, AT, 1972 (GA), Terre des Hommes, Österreichischer Pavillon Expo 1967, Montreal, CAN (GA), Die Jungen, Secession, Vienna, AT, 1958 (GA).

Martha Jungwirth is represented in various European and American private collections amongst them the Rubell Family Collection, USA; the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, USA; the Albertina, Vienna, Austria; Mumok, Vienna, Austria; Lentos, Linz, Austria. Martha Jungwirth lives and works in Vienna.

Eva Schlegel (born in Hall in Tirol in 1960), studied at the University of Applied Arts of Vienna in the class of Prof. Oswald Oberhuber. She taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1997 to 2006.

Her work includes photography, photo-based objects, and experiential and immersive installation works. Using varied media such as photography and video on lead, mirror or glass, her work is often rooted in scientific phenomenon and questions the limits of perception of common viewing habits.

Since 1995, Eva Schlegel has completed numerous public art projects in Austria and abroad and is collected by over 40 major institutions including the Albertina Collection, Vienna, Austria, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Austria, Norton Museum of Art, Miami, FL, Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, Austria, New York Public Library, New York, NY, Teuteloff Photo + Video Collection, Bielefeld, Germany.

She transformed office buildings, universties and public spaces in the context of public art projects in Basel, San Francisco, Copenhagen, Vienna, Munich, Mikulov at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten and in London. The works by Eva Schlegel have bin exhibited in numoerous solo exhibitions like San Francisco (Gallery Wendi Norris), Kopenhagen (Galerie Bo Bjerggaard), the Museum of Applied Arts Vinna and on a regular base at Galerie Krinzinger.

In 2011, Eva Schlegel was the Commissioner for the Austrian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, where she was previously represented as an artist in 1995. Her works have been presented in further important Biennials, like the 15th international Biennial of Architecture, Buenos Aires, at the photo biennial Moskau, twice at the bienniale in Sydney, at the moment there are to of her works exhibited at the Kochi-Muziris Bienniale in India and recently her work has been shown at the Curator’s Highlights of the Paris Photo 2016. Eva Schlegel lives and works in Vienna.

Eva Schlegel’s film See the invisible 2016, is to be seen until January 14, 2018 in the exhibition Sterne at the Lentos Kunstumseum in Linz.