Artist | Julius von Bismarck
Date | September 10, 2025 – March 8, 2026
Location | KUNST HAUS WIEN, Vienna

In powerful images facilitated by technological inventions and radical experimental settings, Julius von Bismarck questions human perception and the relationship we humans have to what we call “nature”. Driven by a boundless spirit of experimentation, the artist combines scientific curiosity with artistic vision. In spectacular actions, he gives the sea a whipping, seeks to capture and tame lightning bolts or paints entire landscapes. The resulting photographs, video works, sculptures and installations are visually stunning and do not shy away from grand gestures.

KunstHausWien is staging the German artist’s first large solo exhibition in an Austrian institution. Whether fires, lightning bolts or huge storm waves and swells – the artist’s engagement with the natural forces of fire and water in a living environment we humans are increasingly changing is the leitmotif of the exhibition. The exhibition title Normality Bias describes the state of a society continuously stricken by multiple crises, with far-reaching and unprecedented ecological and social changes becoming the new normality. Along with a selection of cross-media works from the last fifteen years, new photographic works are on show. For the KunstHausWien’s greened inner courtyard Julius von Bismarck has also created a site-specific intervention.

Julius von Bismarck’s artistic research is oriented on action, with his works often emerging out of direct, physical engagement with the forces of nature. The works assembled in the exhibition deal with traditional images and narratives about nature: nature as a romanticised idyll, as an economic resource or as a vengeful, almost divine authority. Julius von Bismarck counters these ideas with new images, disconcertingly beautiful and contemplative in character – with the result that they almost make us forget the enormous power of nature and the immense physical commitment required to produce them. They enable us to sense and discern the extent to which our perception of nature is culturally moulded.

Julius von Bismarck’s artistic research is not looking for explanations but rather experiences. With experimental openness he creates visual spaces which reveal the limits of our inherited traditional ways of seeing and initiates new perspectives on the relationship between humans and the environment. Amidst the very forces of nature, Normality Bias addresses human hubris, responsibility and agency, challenging us to take another look and question the consequences our actions have on the environment.

Exhibition Website