Oppl’s works – whether in the form of models, photographs,
sound installations, or moving-image pieces, as projections or on displays – fundamentally address the unsettling of perception
in a world where the visible and the audible are always simultaneously material and virtual, and where the world can often
be located in an uncanny in-between space: present and absent, tangible and ephemeral, external and internalized, all-encompassing
and radically constrained at the same time.
Bernd
Oppl was born in Innsbruck. He studied Painting and Graphics at the University of Art and Design Linz as well as Video and
Video Installation at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He lives and works in Vienna.
Oppl’s
works have been presented worldwide in solo exhibitions, among others at the Georgia Museum of Art (USA), the art space Kuiper
Projects in Brisbane (AU), Kunstraum Dornbirn (AT), Lentos Kunstmuseum in Linz (AT), Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck (AT), Kunsthalle
Graz (AT), Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna (AT), as well as in numerous international group exhibitions and film festivals such
as the Fridericianum, Kassel (DE), Merano Arte, Merano (IT), Greater Taipei Biennial, Taipei (TW), Mediamatic, Amsterdam (NL),
and Depo, Istanbul (TR). He has also received numerous awards and scholarships, most recently the prize for Best Experimental
Film at the festival Best Austrian Animation 2022, the Hilde Goldschmidt Prize 2024,
and the ICP Residency Scholarship in New York 2026.
The
interdisciplinary focus „Schwerpunkt Gravitation – Lösen, Fallen und Schweben" is a format initiated by Florian
Bettel, Liddy Scheffknecht, and Anna Spohn. Together with guest lecturers, we discuss the historicity of the concept of gravitation
in art, technology, and science. Beyond a naïve re-actualization of “force” as a conceptual foundation for artistic practice,
for artistic-scientific research, or for cultural and art historical conceptualizations, we critically and transdisciplinarily
examine the forms, techniques, practices, metaphorical dynamics, and discursive framings of gravitation in art, technology,
and science.
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information on „Schwerpunkt Gravitation – Lösen, Fallen und Schweben“
