The Heidi Horten Collection takes it up a sensory notch with the Light Sound Senses exhibition. Immerse yourself in art that engages your eyes, nose and ears.
- Features 30+ artists with often large works
- Light, audio and scent ensures an engaging visitor experience
- Runs Sept 20, 2024 – Mar 23, 2025
- Book entrance tickets* to the collection
- See also:
Art to immerse yourself in
(Olafur Eliasson, Your uncertain shadow (colour), 2010, TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection, Photo: Jens Ziehe | Courtesy Studio Olafur Eliasson, Berlin and © Olafur Eliasson)
Light Sound Senses is one of those exhibitions you can enjoy at different levels.
You might speculate, for example, on the commentary and context of individual pieces or their innovative and impactful use of light sources, audio and scents.
Equally, you can just enjoy the (multi)sensory experience offered by those same works. A key aim behind the exhibition is, after all, to make art more tangible and accessible by engaging different senses.
The individual works vary from small and simple through to whole-room installations.
(View of the exhibition in a photo by Ouriel Morgensztern that shows the Serpentinata installation, © Heidi Horten Collection)
Ceal Floyer’s 1997 Throw, for example, adds a light mask to a theatre lamp to create a different shape on the projected spotlight.
Viewing the patch of light on the floor creates one of those moments when you wonder what other unquestioned practices and processes could do with a touch of artistic inspiration.
Bernhard Leitner’s 2006/2024 Serpentinata, on the other hand, near fills a room with tubing that hints at some lifeform and has loudspeakers peppering its length.
Your perception of the different sounds and pulses depends on your position, inviting you to meander through the installation in an absorbing interplay.
Leitner’s work speaks to the interactivity and immersion associated with much of the exhibition space. You walk through as much as past the art.
(Another view of the exhibition in a photo by Ouriel Morgensztern, notably featuring one of Martin Walde’s works, © Heidi Horten Collection)
The 2020 Your Uncertain Shadow (Colour) installation (one of several intriguing works by Olafur Eliasson) allows you, for example, to project your own coloured body shadows almost like make-your-own pop art.
The use of more expressive light, sound and scent certainly intensifies your artistic encounters. For example:
- The hum of Iv Toshain’s fans combined with the 3D holographic messages projected upon them proves strangely captivating
- Martin Walde’s constructs of glass and noble gases feel like alien life imagined through a futuristic Van der Graaf generator
- Lena Henke’s Memory of a Young Sculpture X had me circling the piece while inhaling deeply
(Christine Schörkhuber, Circuit – Entangled Structure I, 2023, photo by and © Christine Schörkhuber)
At times in the exhibition, you feel HAL 9000 might speak up.
Not that you should imagine some aseptic dystopian landscape. On the contrary, the regular appearance of neon light and colour actually provides a rewarding antidote to the climatic autumnal oppression outside.
Dates, tickets & tips
Immerse yourself in the contemporary art from September 20th, 2024 to March 23rd, 2025. An entrance ticket for or from the Heidi Horten Collection includes access to the exhibition.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
If you’re here during the Advent season, then look out for lights of a rather less artistic nature (but uplifting all the same): the city’s Christmas displays normally switch on sometime in mid-November.
Light Sound Senses runs across two levels above the ground floor. The latter deserves your attention, too, since it houses the collection’s permanent exhibition. The unobtrusive work you walked past could well be a masterpiece by such names as Warhol, Magritte, Picasso…
How to get there
Follow the travel tips at the bottom of the main Heidi Horten Collection article.
Address: Hanuschgasse 3, 1010 Vienna