Han Feng brings to life yet another kind of material: everyday objects, often found in flea markets, reduced to abstract forms and reconstructed with branches and canvas. It is the very absence of these objects that floats in space. Han cites Taoist philosophy as an inspiration for the question of presence and absence as response to the dichotomy of subject and object in art. Han turns the color of paint into artistic subject and the canvas into things in their own right. The art critic Jörg Huber describes Han’s work as “objects with the effect of pictures that have entered space.”1

First presented at Hipp Halle, Somewhere, Gmunden (2021) links the philosophical and conceptual questions in Han’s work to the environment of Gmunden, specifically his long walks along the Traun River, after the artist moved from Shanghai to Berlin. The slender branches serve as the canvas stretchers and at the same time, as a backbone of the uncanny presence of things.

In the work of these four artists, sculpture takes its shape through mechanical fabrication, playful mimesis, traces of animal bodies, and conceptual (re)construction. Regardless of the different approaches, the man-made and natural environment evokes and is projected with rich sensual, emotional, and intellectual experiences, be it nostalgia, anxiety, adoration or curiosity. Indeed, valuable additions to the annual motto of the Salzkammergut Festwochen Gmunden, Central Questions, Great Emotions.

Across the Toscana Park, the works are joined by those of promising young talents and internationally renowned artists, whose central questions often resonate. Notably, Martin Grandits, presented by Galerie Krinzinger/Parallel Vienna, approaches issues of consumption and identity with witty satire. Angelika Lorderer’s (Galerie Sophie Han Feng, Somewhere, Gmunden, 2021, at Hipp Halle Gmunden. Tappeiner) ongoing exhibition at Belvedere 21, Soil Fictions, envisions a posthuman gathering of beings on the soil as a “common ground.” Presented by Parallel Vienna, Gisela Stiegler’s cross-discplinary work revisions techniques in art historical movements, while Heimo Zobernig embeds artistic objects in the history of art, design, and architecture, with a particular focus on the visible and the hidden in the form and ideology of modernism. Parallel Sculpture Park 2024 opens on 28 June, and runs through 31 August. The park is open to the public during the exhibition period. Guided tours are offered on 13 and 27 July, and 10 and 24 August. The Salzkammergut Festwochen Gmunden and the European Cultural Capital, Bad Ischl offer additional artistic programs, including Gmunden Photo, open-air concerts, and events organized by the University of Art Linz.