Helmut Grill

Spiritual - temples, walls & mountains

In the three series "temples", "walls" and "mountains", Helmut Grill deals with spirituality in the present time, the transformation of traditional religiousness into the important, adorable things of the new generation.

"Temples" are remodeling fragments of existing sanctuaries (churches, mosques, temples), with all religious symbols removed and replaced by various relics of the now. They carry titles such as "more, more and more," "eat cake," or "42" (an allusion to the question of the meaning of life taken from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams)

"Walls" moves the Wailing Wall and uses it to show the great expectations, but also to protect, to defend what has been achieved. To overcome a wall to gain the promises behind it. A topic that we still do not seem to have outgrown. A significant work is entitled "finding lake Wobegon" (a fictional village of the writer Garrison Keillor, in which all women are strong, all men are handsome, and all children are above average)

"Mountains" is the first part of the canonizations. Constructed, monumental mountains that are declared sacred by the "Creator" (shown in the picture by an advertising banner drawing plane with the sentence "i declare you holy"). The "sanctity" is counteracted by the "sponsor", a multi-billion dollar company like Apple, McDonald or Chanel, which put their logo in neon sign to the summit.

Exhibition: March 26th - April 10th 2019
Location: Habsburgergasse 5, 1010 Vienna

selected works

Installation views

Press