The internationally successful Austrian artist Xenia Hausner shows her large-scale paintings in the Albertina.

Xenia Hausner, born in 1951, comes from a family of artists, but does not appreciate being reduced to her famous father, the surrealist painter Rudolf Hausner. Fair enough. Her imagery is much too independent for that. The Albertina, which is presenting her works in a comprehensive show, is a home game for Hausner. She has already been represented here in two group exhibitions, and is now going solo for the first time with "True Lies". The large, two-dimensional works in powerful colors have mostly women as their subject matter. The artists also deals with the topic of staging. The compositions preceded to some extent very elaborate preparations in the studio.

In her series "Exiles", the viewer is confronted with people in tight spaces. Whether a line of people in a train compartment or close proximity inside a car: For all the tension, the observer feels a certain level of anxiety. Snapshots that are shocking and unsettling. That in any event do not leave you uninvolved.

Hausner wants to move something in the observer, to invite them to new insights. But this is where the artist's sovereignty of interpretation, which leaves lots of leeway in the interpretation of her images, comes to an end.

Xenia Hausner. True Lies, until August 8, 2021
http://www.albertina.at/