I was born from the love between my mother Edeltraud, born in Villach, and my father, Ulrich Gerhard, born in Leipzig. They both expressed entusiasm on life, nature and art.

 

My childhood was wonderful, grewing up in a beautiful, romantic garden, going by woods, climbing on the top of trees, finding many four-leaf-clovers and having first contacts with the world of arts. The snow and the far horizon, seen from mountain peaks, impressed me deeply.

Since then I love the nature, the humans, the sense of aesthetic and uncompromising truth of life. 

 

Questions about our existence, our relationships and opposite views inspire me.

 

It makes me deeply happy, if other persons identify, get emotioned and share with my artworks, reporting that autobiographical contents can have general values and communication happens between individuals.

 

Keeping my eyes open, four-leafe clovers smile at me.

 

 

 

Regina Hübner was born in 1964 in Villach, Austria. She lives in Villach and Rome, Italy. She has two daughters.

She graduated at the Ortweinschule in Graz in Graphic-Design in 1985 and, in 1990, at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome in Sculpture. Recent awards and recognitions include CALLIOPE Join the Dots, outstanding Austrian women in art and science by Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs, in 2024; The Prize of Culture to the City of Villach in 2022; The Decoration of Honour in Gold to her birth town, in 2021. Ambassador of the Independent Republic of Užupis in 2023 and “Person of the Year for Culture”, elected by the lecturers of Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung Carinthia, in 2021. Winner of the competition Monument to Paul Watzlawick, in 2020. Guest Researcher at IMèRA Institute for Advanced Study of Aix-Marseille University with Percepion of Self and Nonself in Life, in 2019.

 

She conceives long-term projects, that develop further, over time. Her artworks are interconnected across her whole œuvre yet maintaining their independency. Estimation and deep friendships have led to collaborations with personalities from visual art, literature, music, and science, including dialogues and symposia. She involves special key figures, the so-called Protagonists, where the individual destiny is put on a larger scale. Their contributions are constituent of the artwork itself, like in Anonymus dedicated to Vally and in Dear Cell or in still ongoing projects like relationships and reflection and absorption.

 

She uses different means and media, from experimental photography, video, subjects and objects, environment, sound, to performance, text and programs, including theorization and concept. The iconography is generated from reality; we see the slowing down, reversal, or mirroring of processes, where the moving image is used as an extension of the body into the dimension of time, as in melting or happen and unhappen. The filmic medium is used especially in themes focussed on time and ongoing processes, as pointed out in regina hübner/zeit by Arnulf Rohsmann: “… regina hübner‘s ironic impetus is based on the overt reference to the reversal of a process as represented in the chosen medium of video. the system of reference changes from the philosophy of time to the level of communication. the transformation of a process – in this case dripping- from a physical to an electronic medium breaks open the closed system which is one of the conditions of entropy. …”

Arnulf Rohsmann, regina hübner/zeit (¹ 2005, Change + Partner 2001 – 2005, Rome, Italy and ² 2016, MMKK Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria. Translation from German to English, F. Mered.) 

 

Themes and items often have (auto)biographical connotations and treat questions on communication, perception, relation, time, i.a., under the perspective of feelings and subjectivity or from the opposite and the contrary. She conceives long-term projects, that develop further, over time. Her artworks are interconnected across her whole œuvre of 40 years, yet maintaining their independency.

 

 

The given – not only architectural – context of artworks in public space and exhibitions is an important factor to her, which determines the characteristics of the whole, like in the monument KOMMUNIKATION-BEZIHUNG-WIRKLICHKEIT zu Ehren von Paul Watzlawick or in her Ambientations with videos, objects and environments, performative and participative acts, e.g. Zeit (time) and time and person. The unpredictable is considered and the work changes under specific circumstances, also with the same components. E.g. the video loving at ZKM Karlsruhe, Nuit Blanche Paris, VIDEOFORMES Hybrid and Digital Arts or at the CYFEST 16 Yerevan.

 

Solo exhibitions at Meno Parkas Gallery, Austrian Cultural Forum Rome, KAUNAS 2022 European Cultural Capital, VIDEOFORMES Hybrid and Digital Arts, MANIFESTA 13 The European Nomadic Biennial, Nuit Blanche Paris, Dinzlschloss Villach, MMKK Museum of Modern Art Carinthia, EXPO Milano, change + partner contemporary art Rome, La Notte Bianca Roma, MLAC Museo Laboratorio d’Arte Contemporanea dell’Università “La Sapienza” Rome, etc. See: Recent exhibitions.

Participations at festivals like CYFEST 16 Yerevan, IROMEDIA Tehran, BIM Buenos Aires, Užupis Film Festival, NOW & AFTER Moscow, OVER THE REAL Lucca, ADAF Athen, Goethe Institut Dubai, GAMMA Moscow, Analog Room Dubai, Auckland Live Digital Stage, FIAV Casablanca, FIVAC Cuba, Strangloscope Florianópolis, FVG Fotografia Udine, CAPC Bordeaux, TIME is Love.10, ZKM Karlsruhe, Sofia Underground, AMACI Rome, etc.

Group exhibitions in Austria, Belgium, France, GB, Germany, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, USA.

Texts on her work, among others, by R. Annecchini, S. Lux, P. Mania, D. Mattis, L. Pratesi, A. Rohsmann, D. Scuderi, C. Sini, G. Soucheyre and several publications and portraits at ORF Austrian Public Television and Radio, Turbulences Video, Die Bruecke, a.o.

 

Her projects have received the support of institutions like AMU Aix-Marseille University; Austrian Cultural Fora Milan, Paris, Rome; Austrian Embassy Tbilisi; BMKÖS Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport; CIML Centre d’Immunologie Marseille-Luminy (CNRS, Inserm, AMU); The City of Villach; Departmental Council of Bouches-du-Rhône; Federal State of Carinthia; IMéRA - Institut d'études avancées d'Aix-Marseille Université; Institut Français de Lituanie; Region Sud Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur; Region Latium of Italy; RFIEA French Network of Institutes for Advanced Studies.

 

 

NARRATIVE

Since childhood, Regina Hübner loved to draw and dance classic ballett. A friendship to an Austrian sculptor strenghted her idea to go on the path of art. 

 

In 1980 she moved to Graz, where she started to paint in big dimensions. The years in Graz were fundamental in her personal and artistic development. Studies of the Italian language in Perugia and Rome.

In 1985 she awarded Master of Arts in Graphic-Design at the Höhere Lehranstalt für Kunst und Design HTBLVA Graz-Ortweinschule, Graz, Austria.  

 

In 1985 she worked for the first time with stone during a workshop, in the caves of St. Margarethen, Austria, where she was invited by an Austrian photographer and close friend. This meant a keye experience, which led her to go for one year to Carrarra, Italy. During this period, instead of workin with marble, she painted on big sized, very thin papers and tissues. 

 

In 1986 Regina Hübner moved to Rome, where she graduated Master of Arts in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome, in 1990. The Italian language became predominant. During this period she preferred painting, drawing and forming free hanging thin plastiques, reaching lesser materical œvres since 1989 and combining interactions with movements and projections of slides/light/shadow and first films in "Ambientations". The Italian language became predominant. 

 

In 1995 she gave birth to her first daughter Galatea and in 2000 to her second daughter Vega Veridiana. Those new lifes inspired many artworks and questions about time and life. Growing up the two daughters, she re-discovered the bonding to her mother-language, German.

 

Since the '90 the moving image becomes a main medium, as a carrier of time. She visualizes her ideas mostly with experimental photography, film and video, performance, objects, ongoings.

 

She creates so-called Ambientations, in which the artwork changes in order to the specific space and history of its exhibition, in interaction with ambient and environment, including performative and participative acts.

The core-artwork, for exampel a video-work, changes its aspect due to the given context and results in an unique, not repeatable body. 

 

Deep friendships led to collaborations with creatives from the fields of visual art, music, literature and science. Hübner works also with special persons, often important figures in her own life, the so-called Protagonists. Their contributions are fundamental of the artwork itself, like in Anonymus dedicated to Vally, relationships, Dear Cell. 

 

The silent, from the nature registered pure or elaborated sounds, artificial or uncontrolled movements, like the swinging of a tree branch in the wind, can be a determining part. Also natural or artificial changements, interaction with animated beings - the observers - and inanimated subjects are part of the final aspect of the artwork. The manuality, the handmade gestures are the growing entity of a work in progress including drawings, crafts and narrative. The use of specific objects often has biographical connection. Text, scenic dialogues or symposia are part of the whole, and extend communication.  

 

Long-term themes manifest connnections between artworks from different periods over her 40 years oeuvre. We find the concepts of the ongoing of time (Zeit, time and person), the opposite, the relation, the communication (possibilities), the perception and iconographic elements like specularity, repitition, circulation, endlessness, inversion of processes. 

Concept is basic, even if she begins a new artwork because of an "inspiration". 

 

International solo shows, group shows and festivals. See also: recent exhibitions.

Symposia and exclusive texts about her work. Artworks in public and private collections and public space.