vacuum. Annual Exhibition 2025/26

The final exhibition of the year is a showcase traditionally reserved for the members of the Salzburger Kunstverein, this year guest-curated by magazin53a.

What ancient philosophers deemed as “horror vacui”—the absolute and terrifying emptiness —contemporary quantum mechanics conceives as a space full of particle fluctuations and unrealized possibilities. These two seemingly opposed understandings of the vacuum complement each other: they form a paradoxical notion of something that simultaneously signifies absence and potential, displacement and condensation.

Nine artistic positions—Ani Gurashvili, Ulrike Königshofer, Melanie Moser, Luz Olivares Capelle, Martin Sommer, Manuel Tozzi, Francisco Valença Vaz, Bartholomaeus Wächter, and Kay Walkowiak—explore what emerges when spaces appear with gaps and absences. The artists approach the vacuum as both scientific phenomenon and theoretical concept. Their works span psychic, medial, and urban thresholds. They investigate chemical transformations. They reveal heterotopic structures of desire and cyclical conceptions of time.

Rather than an empty void, this exhibition understands the notion of vacuum as a set of conditions that shape our perception of space: what becomes visible, what is withheld, and what structures our attention.

Artists: Ani Gurashvili, Ulrike Königshofer, Melanie Moser, Luz Olivarez Capelle, Martin Sommer, Manuel Tozzi, Francisco Valença Vaz, Bartholomaeus Wächter, Kay Walkowiak.

Curators: magazin53a

magazin53a is part of the Association for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Salzburg and deals with the artistic and cultural scene in the city and region of Salzburg. This includes museums, art associations, galleries and various events. The multi-faceted reporting generates attention for exhibitions and projects and establishes a comprehensive discourse on the art and cultural landscape of Salzburg and beyond. With a feuilletonistic approach, the magazine produces a broad public for the contemporary art scene and serves as a platform for interlinking institutions and discourses. Young authors in particular are committed to a new art criticism.

Art needs space. Salzburg (actually) has plenty of it. The house number 53a of an unused vacancy becomes a program and symbol for a gap to be filled in our cultural coverage.