IN WIEN, MONICA GIOVINAZZI PRESENTS BEHIND, AN EXPLORATION OF IMAGINATION, MATTER, AND TRANSFORMATION
From 10 to 25 September 2026, KABLLO.AT presents BEHIND, an exhibition project by Monica Giovinazzi. Curated by Barbara Pavan, the exhibition opens on Thursday, 10 September 2026 at 6:00 pm at Postgasse 11 in Wien.
THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition brings together works created through different media and materials – from drawing to three-dimensional forms, from colour to reclaimed materials – revealing a practice characterised by a sustained attention to the transformation of matter and to upcycling. The point of departure for BEHIND is a condition typical of the present: we live surrounded by images that have already been constructed, interpreted, and made instantly available. In a visual universe dominated by screens, algorithms, and digital imagery, the exhibition proposes a movement in the opposite direction: a return to matter, to gesture, and to the possibility of creating forms without necessarily having to relate them to something recognisable.
Giovinazzi’s works occupy a deliberately unstable territory between figuration and abstraction. Organic, fantastical, and indeterminate forms suggest bodies, organisms, presences, or landscapes without ever fully defining them. Recognition is thus left suspended. The title BEHIND points precisely to this further dimension: what lies beyond the surface of the image, beyond the original function of an object, beyond the form in which a material presents itself.
Upcycling plays a particularly significant role in this process, as the materials carry with them the memory of their previous existence. Transformation alters their function and appearance without entirely erasing their history. The material thus becomes evidence of a passage: from one form to another, from one function to a new possibility. The same idea runs through the drawings: the forms do not necessarily seek to represent something, but seem to exist in a state prior to definition; they can evoke, suggest, and transform themselves through the perception of the viewer. BEHIND also draws on a way of seeing associated with childhood: the ability to recognise figures in clouds, to transform an indistinct shape into a creature, or to attribute a fantastical presence to the shadows in a room. Giovinazzi invites us to reactivate an imaginative faculty that allows us to produce forms where no form has yet been given. The exhibition therefore brings imagination and matter, memory and transformation, into dialogue.
The exhibition does not offer a single interpretive key, but rather a plurality of possible readings, allowing each work to continue to change through its encounter with the viewer’s gaze. In BEHIND, matter is never definitively resolved, and form is never a point of arrival. It is, instead, a provisional moment within a process that continues.
THE ARTIST
Monica Giovinazzi is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses visual art, installation, performance, relational art, and site-specific interventions. Her work brings matter, body, space, and participation into dialogue through different languages and processes, with particular attention to transformation and upcycling. Her artistic practice has developed between Italy and Austria and has extended to several European countries, including Slovakia, Poland, and the United Kingdom. She has collaborated with cultural institutions, universities, and international art organisations, including the Italian Cultural Institute in Vienna and the Embassy of Italy in Austria.
Her major international projects include Progetto Kantor, developed between Rome and Vienna in collaboration with Cricoteka in Krakow and the Polish Cultural Institute; Europa sulla scena, a European project developed with the Italian Cultural Institute in Vienna and 24 other European Institutes of Culture, in collaboration with the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma; and Stadlnova Project, supported by the European Youth in Action programme and developed between Austria and Slovakia. Her performance practice has also been presented in important theatrical and cultural contexts, including WUK Performing Arts in Vienna, as well as in museums, universities, and independent spaces in Italy and abroad.
Since 2020, Giovinazzi has developed numerous exhibition and participatory projects centred on upcycling, also through the collective L’albero delle farfalle, involving Italian cultural institutions, schools, libraries, and museums. This activity is part of a broader research practice in relational art and education, addressed to audiences of different age groups. She is the founder of the Associazione Culturale Raabe UNLA, active since 2000 in the development and implementation of educational and cultural initiatives in collaboration with schools at all levels, universities, institutions, associations, and organisations. Through the association, she promotes workshops, relational art projects, and performances.
In recognition of her artistic commitment and her contribution to cultural exchange between Italy and Austria, she was awarded the title of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia.
Her most recent projects and exhibitions include NATURALES QUAESTIONES | IBRIDAZIONE at CasermArcheologica, Sansepolcro; IGREEN at the Museo del Fiume in Nazzano; Radici, metamorfosi, mescolanze, the 2nd International Biennale of Contemporary Fiber Art at MuRTAC – Museo del Ricamo e del Tessile Antico e Contemporaneo in Valtopina; JUST A PLAY at BLU Spazio delle Arti, Rome; as well as numerous exhibition, installation, and performance projects in Vienna and other Italian cities.
