MICHAELA SCHWARZ-WEISMANN
Curated by Ivana Marjanović, in collaboration with Magdalena Saxer
PROGRAMME: Friday 27th June 2025
7 p.m. Exhibition Opening Michaela Schwarz-Weismann / durational performance Tamara Maksymenko & Olena Polianska
Welcome by Daniela Lanziner Mühlberger (president), Magdalena Saxer (curatorial assistant), Michaela Schwarz-Weismann (artist)
7:30 p.m. Meet & Greet with Florian Waldvogel (interim artistic director)
8 p.m. KUNSTRAUM INNSBRUCK Summer Party LET’S DANCE (Arkadenhof)
concert, DJ, performance
Michaela Schwarz-Weismann explores contact improvisation as an experimental dance form that brings bodies into unexpected connections and flows. She has developed a new series of paintings that delve into the complexity of human relationships. These artworks meditate on themes of closeness and distance in society, collectivity and isolation, agency, care, and the idea of safer spaces. Schwarz-Weismann’s oil paintings work with large-scale figurative painting in an expressive and somewhat abstract form and employ a warm color palette with sparkling effects. The paintings examine the dynamics of human interaction and poetically evoke societal values like softness, mutual support, and respectful exchange.
A contact improvisation dance workshop conducted by Tamara Maksymenko in collaboration with Michaela Schwarz-Weismann at Kunstraum Innsbruck in February 2025 served as the starting point for Michaela Schwarz-Weismann’s latest painting series with the title momentum us.
Contact Improvisation (CI) is a dance form that explores bodily interaction through touch, shared weight, gravity and intuition. As the name suggests, CI emphasizes dynamic interactions involving spontaneous movement encouraging an open-ended approach. It involves continuous physical contact between the dancers (who are often both experienced artists and beginners), enabling a level of intimacy between strangers that goes far beyond conventional boundaries of human interaction. Practitioners in this dance community hold a primary responsibility to foster an environment that respects personal boundaries and the need for contact and withdrawal, and ensures that no abuse occurs.
Michaela Schwarz-Weismann utilizes her experience in Contact Improvisation, as a catalyst for creating new images, which capture this ephemeral artistic form by translating it into 'static' imagery, and reflect on various themes that elevate and translate the experience of CI to a broader systemic, social, and existential level. Her aim is not to document, but to express the empowering potential of this artistic method and the human interactions it fosters, thereby reflecting on care, 'pleasure activism,' safer spaces and human bodily contact. Within this context, art becomes a form of social practice: it is no longer a personal endeavor, but a collective endeavor that serves society by bringing people together and forming communities. A central concern of Schwarz-Weismann’s art works is the theme of bonding through softness—and the possibility of its failure.
In contrast to some painters in art history who depicted dancers with a focus on movement and the gracefulness of the dancer’s body, Schwarz-Weismann engages with a different set of questions. As she states:
“My work investigates the intricate dynamics of the human connection—how we rely on, merge with, and are shaped by one another. Through figurative abstraction, I explore the tension between individuality and interdependence, and depict bodies that intertwine, overlap, or exist in proximity to and reflect on the push and pull of relationships.
In these paintings, figures emerge and dissolve—sometimes fragmented, sometimes whole—mirroring the fluidity of emotional and physical bonds. Layers of color, texture, and form symbolize the complexities of reliance, trust, and vulnerability. Each piece invites the viewer to question the nature of connection: how do we sustain one another? Where do we end and where does the other begin?”*
Schwarz-Weismann’s oil paintings work with portraiture in an expanded and conceptual manner and feature a radiant palette with glowing qualities. In some, additional materials, such as chalk or crepe tape cutouts, are used to enhance these luminous effects. The figurative forms in her paintings are detailed and precise, rendering them both realistic as well as deeply expressive. They convey the emotional intensity of the subjects along with their experiences and interactions. The glowing effect emanating from the images renders invisible phenomena visible and alludes to the vitality of living matter and the energy generated through (non-verbal) interaction. Schwarz-Weismann’s painterly technique emphasizes the profound potential of human interconnectedness. Her expressive-realist brushwork occasionally portrays human figures more abstractly, as she creates scenes abundant with symbolic gestures. These portraits of collective bodies are set against a monochrome background, which give them a monumental quality.
While some of Schwarz-Weismann’s earlier feminist projects focused on significant historical figures involved in political and social change, or on reinterpreting episodes from the history of women’s oppression, her current work emphasizes the role of human agency in building relationships. At the same time, she remains aware of its fragility, which is often threatened by the social rigidity and harshness that can lead to violence and the abuse of power. Schwarz-Weismann states: “by daring to be soft, we open ourselves to deeper connections—with each other, with nature, and with the quiet, powerful forces that shape us.”
Finally, the new painting series momentum us is accompanied by a few earlier works, namely her paintings of plants. These depict the flowering plant Myrtus communis (common myrtle), renowned for its healing properties and mythological symbolism. Myrtle is associated with Venus, the ancient Roman goddess of love and beauty, considered a sacred emblem of love, and was frequently used in wreaths and decorative motifs.
Sources:
maree brown, adrienne (ed.), Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, AK Press, 2019
Michaela Schwarz-Weismann, Dare to be Soft, 2025 https://www.michaelaschwarz.com/DARE-TO-BE-SOFT
https://www.michaelaschwarz.com/
Text: Dr.in Ivana Marjanović
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Michaela Schwarz-Weismann was born in Innsbruck and lives in Vienna. After studying architecture and design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, she studied painting during her master's study at the Royal College of Art in London. Michaela Schwarz-Weismann has exhibited both locally and internationally at various art institutions and festivals, such as Parallel Vienna, Grubeck contemporary Vienna, Künstlerhaus Wien, Kunstpavillion and Neue Galerie der Tiroler Künstler*schaft, im Vektor, Hall i. Tirol, Soo Contemporary, Teheran, Scotty Space, Berlin.
https://www.michaelaschwarz.com/
EVENTS DURING THE EXHIBITION PERIOD
EVENT
27.06.25, 20:00
KUNSTRAUM INNSBRUCK SOMMERFEST 2025
LET'S DANCE
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FÜHRUNG
03.07.25, 18:00
FÜHRUNG
MIT MICHAELA SCHWARZ-WEISMAN
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PERFOMANCE
08.08.25, 19:30
Shall We Talk - the teachers of the SOLO & CI Tyrol Festival 2025
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PREPARATORY WORKSHOP
08.02.25, 16:00 – 19:00
CONTACT IMPROVISATION (DANCE)
WITH TAMARA MAKSYMENKO
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