On more than 7,000 m², Salzburg’s most popular museum shows nature from its most exciting side: from fascinating underwater worlds in the aquarium to extraterrestrial experiences in the space hall, from giant dinosaurs from days long past to a journey into the human body. Another highlight: research and experimentation in Austria’s most versatile science center. It’s best to discover it for yourself – this museum is an adventure!
BIRDS! NIKOLA IRMER: A PAINTER IN THE COLLECTION DEPOT
16 June 2023 to 15 September 2024
The artist Nikola Irmer enters into a dialogue with the objects in the collection and translates it into expressive painting. The special exhibition is complemented by bird specimens from the museum, tells of the threat to bird life as well as the importance of scientific collections for the preservation of biodiversity.
Nikola Irmer: Cardinals; Oil on canvas; Schloss Friedenstein, Gotha 2015 Photo: Haus der Natur/Auer
Painting is a slow medium with unruly material
Nikola Irmer brings taxidermied animals from museum depots back to light. For 15 years, the artist has been dealing with taxidermy from the collections of various natural history museums. She sees these collections as windows into times gone by and appreciates the slow process of perception and transformation that painting offers her. Nikola Irmer: “I try to give these animal bodies in painting a place where they can exist independently of scientific determinations.”
Enigmatic Bird: The Dodo
The current and mainly man-made threat to the bird world is told on the basis of three already extinct bird species – including a skeletal specimen of the dodo, which became extinct just 100 years after its discovery. Deforestation of tropical forests kills 140 million birds every year.
While natural science always sees representatives of a species in the taxidermy in the collections, Irmer tries to capture the animal as an individual. In a recorded conversation between Nikola Irmer and museum director Robert Lindner, an exciting dialogue develops between the artist and the biologist.
for more informations: