JULIUS VON BISMARCK
Normal Disaster
Julius von Bismarck. Normal Disaster
He gives the sea a whipping, captures lightning bolts or paints whole landscapes. In powerful images facilitated by technological inventions and radical experimental settings, Julius von Bismarck explores human perception and the relationship we humans have to what we call “nature”. With Natural Disaster the KunstHausWien is staging the German artist’s first large solo exhibition in an Austrian institution.
Driven by a boundless spirit of experimentation, the artist combines scientific curiosity with artistic vision. His photographs, video works, sculptures and installations are visually stunning and do not shy away from grand gestures.
Whether wildfires, lightning strikes or huge storm waves and swells – the engagement with the natural forces of fire and water in a living environment we humans are increasingly changing is the leitmotif of the exhibition. The title Normal Disaster describes the state of a society continuously stricken by multiple crises, with far-reaching and unprecedented ecological and social changes becoming the new normality. Along with a selection of cross-media works from the last fifteen years, a series of new photographic works will be on show. Julius von Bismarck is also creating a site-specific intervention for the KunstHausWien’s greened inner courtyard.
The works assembled in the exhibition deal with traditional images and narratives about nature: nature as a romanticised idyll, as an economic resource or as a vengeful, almost divine authority. Julius von Bismarck counters these ideas with new images, disconcertingly beautiful and contemplative in character – with the result that they almost make us forget the enormous power of nature and the immense physical commitment required to produce them. They enable us to sense and discern the extent to which our perception of nature is culturally moulded. As the artist has put it:
Julius von Bismarck’s artistic research is oriented on action, with his works often emerging out of direct, physical engagement with the forces of nature. The works assembled in the exhibition deal with traditional images and narratives about nature: nature as a romanticised idyll, as an economic resource or as a vengeful, almost divine authority. Julius von Bismarck counters these ideas with new images, disconcertingly beautiful and contemplative in character – they almost make us forget the enormous power of nature and the immense physical commitment by the artist to produce them, enabling us to sense just how much our perception of nature is moulded by culture.
“In my view,” explains the artist, “what we think about nature or how we understand nature is strongly informed by images – when nature is represented in an image it’s called a landscape. I try to destroy the old, conventionalised images and create new ones.”
Julius von Bismarck is not looking for explanations with this creative research but rather experiences. Through the openness of his experiments he creates visual spaces which reveal the limits of our inherited traditional ways of seeing and initiate new perspectives on the relationship between humans and the environment. Amidst the very forces of nature, Normal Disaster addresses human hubris, responsibility and agency, challenging us to take another look and question the consequences our actions have on the environment.
Biography
Julius von Bismarck was born in 1983 in Breisach am Rhein (Germany) and grew up in Riad (Saudi Arabia) and Berlin. He lives and works in Berlin and Switzerland. He studied at the University of the Arts, Berlin, the Hunter College New York (USA) and the Institute for Spatial Experiments founded by Ólafur Elíasson in Berlin. The artist has already developed numerous solo exhibitions, for example at the Berlinische Galerie (2023), the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (2020) and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2019). He has also taken part in diverse international group exhibitions and biennales, including Abenteuer Abstraktion in the Sprengel Museum Hannover (2023), the Mercosul Biennale in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2022), STUDIO BERLIN in the Berghain, Berlin (2020), Power to the People in the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2018), the first Antarctica Biennale (2017) and the Architecture Biennale Venice (2012). In 2008 he was awarded the Prix Ars Electronica, while in 2012 he was the first artist-in-residence at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, in Geneva.
Curator
Sophie Haslinger
A project as part of FOTO WIEN 2025
Opening
Tue 09.09.2025, 18:00
Free entry
Exhibition programme
Public Tours: Normal Disaster
Every 2nd Sunday, 11:00-12:00
Sun 14.09.2025
Sun 12.10.2025
Son 09.11.2025
Sun 14.12.2025, mit ÖGS-Dolmetsch
Sun 11.01.2026
Sun 08.02.2026
Sun 08.03.2026
in German
Artist Talk
Julius von Bismarck and Curator Sophie Haslinger
Tue 09.09.2025, 18:00 – 19:00
Curators’ Tours
with Sophie Haslinger
Mon 13.10.2025, 17:00 – 18:00
Thu 05.03.2026, 17:00 – 18:00
in German
Future Talk: Climate x Change
Wer macht das Wetter?
Wed 05.11.2025, 18:00 – 19:30
in German
Exkursion: Wetterstation Hohe Warte
Fri 21.11.2025, 14:00 – 16:00
In Cooperation with GeoSphere Austria
Tour: Im Dialog
With Cultural Anthropologist Greca Meloni
Wed 14.01.2026, 18:00 – 19:30
Workshop: Science Lab – Feuer und Blitz
WithScience Pool
Sat 21.02.2026, 14:00 – 16:00
DIY-Station: Feurige Geister
Sat 28.02.2026, 13:00 – 16:00
From 6 years
Project Room Garage
Fuzzy Earth. the belly knows before the brain
Tekla Gedeon & Sebastian Gschanes
16.10.2025–25.01.2026
Curated by Stephan Kuss & Veronika Hackl