Agnes Scherer

I feel very honored that my work „An unnamed file contains an incorrect path“ from the series „The Notebook Simulations“ is part of the exhibition „A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.“ which opens on May 19th at @hallefuerkunststeiermark ! This exhibition, curated by Sandro Droschl and Franca Zitta, examines thinking, perception and subjectivity within the tension between introspection, cybernetics and artificial intelligence. Its point of departure is the work of the Austrian writer, cognitive psychologist and cybernetician Oswald Wiener (1935 - 2021), whose genuine thinking since the 1950s critically navigated between these fields while systematically resisting institutional appropriation. The show features works by Oswald Wiener, Jenna Bliss, Günter Brus, VALIE EXPORT, Tishan Hsu, Morag Keil, Josh Kline, Michael Krebber, Maria Lassnig, Ken Okiishi, Walter Pichler, Rudolf Polanszky, Dieter Roth, Tiffany Sia, Franz West, Ingrid Wiener, among others. My work „an unnamed file contains an incorrect path“ was developed for „The Notebook Simulations“, curated by @eva_birkenstock at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen Düsseldorf, in 2021.

On May 22, my exhibition “Three Wicked Games” opens at @salzburgerkunstverein It’s based on a simple idea, primarily transforming the well-known games from Goya’s Rococo-era tapestry cartoons into walk-through scenarios and adding a third image to them. And yet, there remained something compelling about making the idea real. The exhibition is curated by Mirela Baciak / @mire_la_ Photo: Andrew Phelps

„Études marginales“ (renamed), a very long painting on paper, is on its way to @modernamuseet now to become part of the group exhibition “House of Nisaba”, curated by @hendrik_folkerts .

This parasol with a ballerina on the wheel will be a detail of my upcoming exhibition at @salzburgerkunstverein (opening on May 22nd).

I’ve randomly decided it’s Flamenco day Behold the brothers Francisco and Jose Antonio Aguilera Caceres (@fncisco.javier and @jose.aguilera.style ) with whom I had the guilty pleasure of working on my operetta Cupid and the Animals, now almost 10 years ago. As the most professional dancers at the Flamenco school in Düsseldorf, they were way out of my league and I dressed in a black cape, pretending I was coming from an opera house, just to get a chance to talk to them 🦇🙈. Getting them on board for this collaboration felt like a miracle to me and Camillo Grewe (@camillo.grewe ), who composed the music. If anyone is wondering whether I would like to create another work in that genre - YES I do. Cupid and the Animals was supported by the Nigel Greenwood Art Prize and @tramp.s London where it premiered in 2017. There isn’t much footage from the three times this piece was performed (London, Cologne, NYC), but I will try to share some more material soon.

A small glimpse into the Cologne studio of my friend Şirin Şimşek (@simsek_sirin ) whose paintings really enchant me. A central point of reference around which she creates the dream-like universe of this series are female figures wearing hats. They are inspired by Yemeni shepherdesses with whom the artist feels a particular affinity. For Şirin, they are companions with whom she travels through paths and worlds in which reality and fiction blend. Şirin Şimşek (*1983) lives and works in Cologne. Her practice encompasses film, photography and video installations and is currently being expanded to include painting as a central medium. Her work mostly focuses on the human subject, their social, geographical and political environment, and questions of identity formation and cultural belonging. 1: Private 2: Tütenler için Konser (Concert for smokers), 2025, 56 x 70cm, oil on canvas 3: Beyoğlu’nun oğlu (Son of Beyoğlu), 2025, 27 x 46 cm, oil on canvas 4: Jemenitische Hirtin (Untitled), 2025, 30 x 40 cm, oil on canvas 5: Untitled (Shoppen gehen mit Tochter), 2025, 30 x 40 cm, oil on canvas 6: Untitled, 2025 160 x 180 cm, oil on canvas

Before Saint Agnes’ Day comes to an end, I’d like to mark the occasion by sharing my winter portraits from this year, for which I’m very grateful to the wonderful photographer Helena Kalleitner - @helena_kalleitner

The Oyster Baby While looking back through my photos from 2025, I came across this detail of the „Zillertal paneling“ at the @tirolerlandesmuseen . It shows Mary presenting the newborn child in a swaddling cloth resembling an oyster. A strange coincidence? The image reminded me of the essay “The Birth of the Pearl from the Lightning Bolt” (see below), which explains that for a long time it was believed that pearls were formed during thunderstorms, when lightning allegedly struck oysters through the ocean’s surface. Which made the pearl a symbol of immaculate conception. Seen in this light, it seems possible that the tiny baby in this painting is really meant to look like a pearl in its shell. The paneling was painted around 1800. Image 4 shows the paneling as a whole; image 5 shows two other Alpine oysters which were eaten this weekend at the market in Salzburg. Ernst Friedrich Ohly: „Die Geburt der Perle aus dem Blitz“ (1977).

A Goose in Hell Finally, I was able to see the murals in the chapel of St. Martin in Bürgstadt, which famously include an ambiguous goose in Hell. While demons drag humans into Hell by force, this goose sort of tenderly receives a woman who appears to step into Hell’s maw more or less of her own free will. The prevailing interpretation holds that the goose represents the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus, since the name “Hus” translates as “goose.” Read this way, the woman enters Hell unwittingly, having turned toward the ideas of someone regarded by the Catholic Church as a heretic. While this interpretation is convincing, the image of the goose in Hell still retains a life of its own. Out of place, upright, and radiating a certain politeness, the bird seems alone intent on maintaining its composure. The murals were executed in 1593.

On the occasion of a weekend spent in my hometown, here is a perhaps overdue report on the original talking mirror of Snow White’s wicked stepmother, which hangs in the local castle and, like all cultivated speakers of its time, expresses itself in French: Pour la récompense et pour la peine – For reward and for punishment alike (Left oval: crown and fasces) Amour Propre – Self-love (Right oval: sunflower basking in the light of its likeness, the sun) The mirror was brought (back?) to the castle — coincidentally in my birth year, 1985 — by three inspired men from the tavern where it had hung for a very long time. Suddenly everything fell into place: how had it taken so long to notice that one was standing at the historical site of this fairy tale? The mirror is larger than it appears in photographs and glowing red. As a child I was puzzled by the pince-nez-like shape of the “talking” crest, which I appreciate today. Image 1: Manfred Scherer Image 2 and 3: Andreas Eich

Byung-Chul Han writes in “The Crisis of Narration” (2024) that the heap is the opposite of the narrative. Or is it a different way of shaping narratives? „Stargazing Mess“, mixed media installation, currently on view at Sans Titre Gallery @sanstitre.gallery Photos: Aurélien Mole