How are color textures “felt” with the eyes? Is the painting surface actually rough—or is it merely an illusion? This exhibition explores how paintings are experienced through the senses without physical contact. The power of these works lies not only in their visual presence but also in the way their materials stimulate the imagination. They open up a new dimension of perception—one that extends beyond seeing alone to a conceptual exploration of materials and techniques.
In the twentieth century, art underwent a profound transformation: artists increasingly turned to everyday materials. Alongside precious oil paint, gold leaf, and fresco, textiles, papier-mâché, wood pieces, or latex were incorporated into artistic practice. The valuable, the auratic, and the enduring—long central characteristics of art—began to waver. This shift prompted a fundamental reassessment of materiality and an expansion of classical panel painting.
Adolf Frohner experimented early on with collage-like extensions of the picture plane, from which he developed his “Materialbilder”. The work from 1960 shown at the Forum Frohner deliberately bears this title.
Rudolf Polansky takes this process to its extreme. Since the 1990s, he has preferred using industrial materials such as Plexiglas and acrylic glass, aluminum, mirror foil, or cardboard. Stripped of their original function, they are combined with synthetic resin, silicone, wire, paint, or pigments to create new structures and assemblages. The resulting surfaces range from glossy to matte to mirrored, producing complex textures and visual effects. His central series of works, “Reconstructions”, opens a visual field that invites viewers to immerse themselves in the materiality, explore its traces and surfaces, and reflect on space, functionality, and meaning.
Jakob Gasteiger uses paint as a dimensional, sculptural medium. Applied thickly to the canvas with a notched trowel, the paint itself becomes space, surface, object. The relief-like structures can be “felt” with the eyes.
The exhibition presents a sophisticated selection of works whose combination of materials awakens the desire to touch them—but in the museum context, this is precisely what is prohibited. The artists play with the effects of surface and illusion, expanding traditional panel painting and photography through diverse materials or hyperrealistic deception. Unlike the spring exhibition at the Forum Frohner, the artworks in this show may not be touched.
Museums and exhibition venues preserve art and cultural assets, study their significance, and make these accessible to the public. Any touching of paintings, documents, photographs, objects, etc., can cause damage through fingerprints, moisture, or abrasion. The “no touching” rule is a precaution to safeguard valuable, fragile, and historically significant works for future generations.
Artists: Bettina Beranek, Max Boehme, Tone Fink, Adolf Frohner, Jakob Gasteiger, Rudolf Goessl, Rudolf Polanszky, Wolfgang Raffesberg, Clemens Wolf
Curator: Elisabeth Voggeneder
Don‘t touch!
Opens in 46 days
