Exhibition Opening: May 14th, 2025, 7 pm with Mette Sterre’s performance “Hummelmania”
Opening hours:
Wednesday – Friday, 3 – 6 pm,
or individual appointments (closed on public holidays)
Dear Maja, Mette, and Saffi,
Have you ever heard of the office monster?
It’s said to be a strange creature that haunts administrative spaces – obsessed with formalities, decision-making processes, and the supposed logic behind them. It spreads boredom like spores, controlling things in mysterious ways, or perhaps not understanding anything at all.
I thought this might be something fun (or terrible) to explore.
I see you all as critical minds, each with a quirky edge. When I imagine the three of you together, I hear weird sounds, see odd creatures, mumbled narrations, characters pretending to fit into a certain narrative (but, actually, they don’t). There’s an openness to collecting strange objects or thoughts, and no fear of putting out too much.
We should look together for this species or non-species, one of these monsters from an office setting by imagining a narration around it in an exhibition.
Why? Art spaces often feel too clean, too sterile, and I kept thinking of the office monster there – lurking, silent, not doing much but still managing to spread despair. We’ve all met versions of it. I don’t want to embody or illustrate one of those creatures. We could create a space that pushes back against that feeling of being trapped by bureaucracy, all-too-trying to be smart, and decisions that seem so rational but are so dangerous. I’m not entirely sure what this means yet, and maybe that’s the point. But it could set a mood. And maybe then it comes together as one in the space, or it at least serve as a circus against bad moods. Who knows. In Linz.
I imagine the exhibition like a theater piece in three acts: each of you telling a story. One might confront the monsters. One might decode their past. One might show the quiet damage they cause. There could be a prologue, a backstory of how the monster came to be, how it inhabits the office, or what it leaves behind.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Maybe we can find a cure for office spaces.
Maximilian
The exhibition is supported by Slowenisches Kulturinformationszentrum SKICA, Vienna, and partly made possible through financial support from the Mondriaan Fund.
