Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl to represent Austria at 2021 Venice Biennale

Frequent collaborators Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl will represent Austria during 2021 Venice Art Biennale, as announced by Austrian State Secretary for Cultural Affairs Ulrike Lunacek. According to the artists, the exhibition will feature paintings, textile works, photographs, objects, audio and video works, and holograms to turn the pavilion into a “space of desire”, questioning traditional artistic hierarchies and museum presentations. According to Lunacek, the exhibition will be characterised by both a humorous and satirical vein.
The Austrian Pavilion will be curated by Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wein (MUMOK) director Karola Kraus.

Knebl was born in 1970 in Baden, Austria; after ten years of work in geriatric care, she studied fashion at the University of Applied Arts and then textual sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She was awarded the Outstanding Art Award in the field of visual arts by the Federal Chancellery of Austria in 2017.
Born in Salzburg in 1956, Scheirl studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and then at Central Saint Martins College in London. She participated in international group exhibitions, such as Manifesta 14. In recent years, her interest has shifted from experimental moving image works to painting.
Their collaborations often result in relaxing mixed-media installations such as the monumental, 230-foot-high work for the facade of Vienna’s city hall tower.