Key works

The new exhibition rooms of the South Tyrolean Artists' Association SKB ARTES are opening with Key works by 174 artists.

Moving into a new house begins with a key. It opens rooms and doors and also serves as a bridge to what was once closed off. With the opening exhibition of the South Tyrolean Artists' Association, this key also symbolizes the beginning of a new era after the end of the old one. Since 1989, the Prisma Gallery has been the center of exhibition activity, but from 2024 onwards, it will be SKB ARTES, located in Landkommende Weggenstein, Bolzano. To celebrate this new beginning, the members of SKB themselves will be the hosts and present their own personal key works.

“Key works” are key to other works and have a lasting influence. And so the history of art in all disciplines is wide-ranging, with works that have become engraved in the collective memory. Edvard Munch's The Scream, Maurice Ravel's Bolero, Johann von Goethe's Faust, and Le Corbusier's church in Ronchamp occupy a prominent position in their respective oeuvres, and the list could be continued indefinitely from antiquity onwards. In most cases, it was art for a new era. With 174 works, SKB ARTES showcases the extraordinary diversity of its members' artistic creations. Important, groundbreaking, formative works, something like the sum and quintessence of each individual's artistic creation. They create identity for artists, even if their key function often only becomes apparent in retrospect when viewing the entire oeuvre.

In an extraordinary compilation, artists from the fields of fine arts, literature, architecture, and music present “key works” of painting, sculpture, video, photography, graphic art, and installation in the rooms, works that have symbolic power and give us an insight into the respective artistic creation and, at the same time, a current overview and in-depth view of the multifaceted art scene in the country. This is a special premiere for the spacious rooms of SKB ARTES, as they allow art to be experienced from a new perspective and focus on the personality of the artists through their own selection of works. Sometimes these are the artistic nucleus and contain recurring questions and motifs. At other times, they underline a preference for certain techniques. Often, the works presented are also a prerequisite for personal development and form a bridge between the past and the new.

The exhibition should therefore be understood as a key, insightful and multifaceted. In this show, the artists hand us the key to their work; it is up to us to open the doors and find the key to understanding the works. The exhibition is curated by the department heads of the South Tyrolean Artists' Association Eva Gratl, Ferruccio Delle Cave, Josef Lanz, Maximilian Knoll, and Stefano Peluso.

Photo: Fanni Fazekas, Karin Schmuck, Leonhard Angerer