Bernhard's Austria - Hundertwasser's Paradise

The joint exhibition combines for the first time two major photography series by Erika Schmied, creating an impressive juxtaposition. For many years, photographer Erika Schmied followed the footsteps of two prominent Austrians who could not have been more diverse.

One part of the exhibition is structured along the individual books by Thomas Bernhard, presenting their heritage. The selection of the places of action of his books is complemented by photographs of the three houses respectively courtyards in the heart of Upper Austria, where Thomas Bernhard lived from 1964 to the day of his death in 1989. Additional photographs are showing the writer with Erika and Wieland Schmied who were connected to him in friendship for more than twenty-five years and who lived in his neighbourhood.

The other part of the exhibition is oriented on Hundertwasser's biography and the places which became his home. In these places he found a completion and materialization of his concepts and ideals of a life in harmony with nature which he lived secluded and away of the public eye. A farm house in the Normandy, a small sawmill in the Waldviertel, Lower Austria, a garden including a gardener house in Venice, his property in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and last but not least the small roof apartment in a building which he redesigned in Vienna's third district - the KunstHausWien.