Alexander Stark (*1986) lives and works as a multidisciplinary artist in Austria. His practice

is characterized by conceptual and transdisciplinary approaches. Through spatiality,

material research, and scalar intervention, his works encourage questioning perceptions of

reality and reconsidering one's worldview. With "DON'T YOU SEE," he develops an

exhibition that does not treat seeing and understanding as self-evident capabilities but

rather as something fragile and situative. Vision emerges not as immediate recognition but

as a process requiring time, movement, and attention. The works unfold their effect not at

first glance but through the interplay of body, space, material, and light.

Already in the exterior space of the artist's residence, Stark employs reduced and precise

forms. A striking metal sculpture introduces the exhibition's theme in an objective manner,

without expressive gesture. In its simplicity, it evokes the language of Minimal Art, which

operates through repetition, measure, and presence. One's own vantage point becomes

palpable, and the body finds itself inevitably in relation to the work. "FLASH"

(2026) visible often only for a moment is arrested at this instant, and the sculpture

permits circumnavigation and subjective temporal perception.

In the large left room, the individual experience of the works intensifies. Metal sculptures

encounter paintings with moiré effects. Arranged in rigorous sequence, edge against edge,

they create a surface density of layers, grids, and stratifications. Depending on one's

viewpoint, the surfaces begin to shimmer, shift, or pulsate. These optical displacements do

not result from movement of the works themselves but from the activity of viewing and

perception: the eye scans, momentarily loses stability, and recalibrates. While Stark

develops his work through a strict system of geometric forms, each viewer generates an

entirely unique reality of perception, contingent upon rhythm, velocity, and angle of view.

Reality becomes a relative phenomenon, dependent on the observer's position.

In the central room, focus shifts from clear grid systems toward organic structures. The

works engage principles of growth, density, and branching without establishing naturalistic

reference. Forms visualize processes of becoming without establishing naturalistic

connections. From distance, the stamped surfaces appear calm and homogeneous; from

proximity, depths and irregularities open up. The intense luminosity of the pigments

employed in the color creates a stark effect. The images appear, from one perspective,

overlaid with a transparent haze, while from another vantage point they are marked by

sharp contrasts. The space demands decelerated seeing a sensitive response to

transitions, tensions, and intensifications.

On the park-facing side, a contemplative situation emerges. Combined works from various

series engage subtle color gradations, reliefs, and universal ordering systems. The works

appear less as classical panel paintings than as rhythmic arrangements whose logic unfolds only

through extended viewing. Light and material here maintain a restrained,

carefully calibrated relationship. Where the opposite room confronted seeing actively as

bodily sensation, Stark in this space emphasizes the theme of introduction. An

atmosphere emerges that does not aim at recognizing patterns and rules but at cultivating

a sense of connection.

"DON'T YOU SEE" assembles no closed statements. Rather, the exhibition creates

conditions under which perception becomes experienced as an active, embodied process.

It invites one to tolerate uncertainty, question viewing habits, and shift between distant and

proximate sight. The focus is not on rapid comprehension but on gradual

perception - precise, open, and without guidance.

Text: Anne Zühlke