Art Collection Schlichtner website has been in operation since June 2020 presenting digital exhibitions. An on-site exhibition is a yearly special feature. We show works by artists regardless of their nationality, including works from the Art Collection Schlichtner. The purpose of the website is to make art more accessible. There is so much art in storage never to be seen. Art provides a unique means of expression - a visual language and many things can only be said in this way. Art plays a pioneering role in articulating important issues and concerns.
We welcome exhibitions of various themes and art genres. Our exhibitions are devoted to art that takes a stance on discrimination in gender, class and race relations. We also exhibit artists that address colonial, patriarchal or totalitarian and neoliberal systems of domination and economics. Contextualization and decolonization are possible approaches. In addition, works dealing with climate change, the western art canon and the art market will be shown. The self-image, the self-portrait and the reflective reference to these images are also important current themes. Members of marginalized and vulnerable groups are given preference here.
Exhibition texts should deal with different ways of looking at art. It is about the tension between the personal statement of artists and about art as a reception phenomenon, but also about socio-cultural, art historical and scientific aspects.
The digital exhibitions usually last one to two months. The exhibitions that have come to an end are archived and thus remain visible. Social media are integrated. Everything is done in consultation with the artists and photo reproduction rights holders. There is also an agreement with Bildrecht GmbH to that effect.
The Art Collection Schlichtner began collecting in 2002, collecting objects and works that artists placed in public space. Acquaintances with the artists were the result, and much could be preserved. Many of these works were by Christian Eisenberger and they form the cornerstone of the collection. His work sparked my interest in art. I continued my studies eventually receiving a bachelor's degree in the history of art.
Street art and graffiti artists were initially the focus of the collection. Works by Keramik, Busk, Nychos, El Lasso, Die Made, Smurf, EmilOne, monochrom and C215 were purchased at Galerie Inoperable. Interest later shifted and the collection was expanded to include works by Christian Eisenberger, Jonathan Meese, Begi Guggenheim, Amiko Kamikaze, les tardes goldscheyder, Stinkfish, Thomas Gegner, Margareta Klose, Arianna Ellero, Monika Böhme-Sauter, Martin Dickinger, Aklima Iqbal, Sagar Sarkar, Susan Lisbin, Alan Neider, Martin Grandits, Michael Maier, Gert Resinger, Annette Tesarek und Anna Pelz.
Through the years, my taste has developed and expanded to such a degree that it is impossible for me to purchase all the art that I am drawn to. I developed Art Collection Schlichtner website as the solution to that predicament. Here I can share my artistic preferences, my discoveries which might otherwise not reach the eyes of the public and all art I wish I could collect.
Art Collection Schlichtner, Vienna, August 2022. Edited by Bernice Sokol Kramer.