Vernissage 29.08.2026 | 11:00 - 16:00 Uhr
30.08.2026 - 14.11.2026

GEORG HABERLER | Hopp Hopp Solo Exhibition

Georg Haberler sings children’s songs. Not because he can—he always thought he couldn’t—but because at some point, the question of whether he could no longer mattered. This small, personal moment became the starting point for his new series of works: a fascination with the energy and carefree spirit of a child who, despite all limitations, learns, falls, and keeps going. “Hopp Hopp” is a call—to himself and to the viewers—to move forward, to take action, to reveal oneself, and to try something new.

The titles of the works are inspired by children’s songs and lend the paintings their rhythm and mood—playful, sometimes dizzying, always in motion. The familiar figures of his visual world appear on canvas and jute: giraffes, crocodiles, acrobats, clowns, church steeples with glowing roofs, people in motion, animals on wheels. They frolic as if in a “hidden object” picture, without hierarchy, without a foreground. In Haberler’s characteristic technique, the figures are embroidered onto the canvas with thread and then colored from the back with highly pigmented acrylic paint—the paint shines through the canvas and thus emerges from within to the surface.

In this new series, the visual language shifts noticeably. Whereas earlier works arranged the figures in a flowing chain, Haberler now arranges them more like small islands in space—each scene standing on its own, yet part of a larger flow. In doing so, he consciously draws on an earlier phase of his work, in which he worked exclusively with abstract color fields and transparency, and combines this with the narrative figurativeness of recent years. The surface comes more strongly to the fore, and geometric structures gain prominence. The backs of the paintings—which have always been an integral part of his practice—glow in the same intense colors and appear like an abstract parallel world. In some works, the roofs of the houses are sewn on as three-dimensional forms, protruding into the space—while in other places, doors and windows open up, revealing a view of the interior. These small interventions suddenly lend the work a sculptural quality and expand the concept of painting.

With 'Hopp Hopp', Haberler picks up on a long line of thought. Klee and Kandinsky saw in childhood a direct path to the essential—unspoiled by conventions, closer to inner truth. Jean Piaget’s developmental psychology showed that children do not think in a simplified way, but rather differently: more comprehensively, more associatively, without the blinders of adult logic. Haberler is thus not painting a nostalgic picture of childhood, but rather articulating an attitude: the willingness to begin without shame. A child’s openness—their sense of wonder, their courage to embrace imperfection—is not a lost quality, but one that can be cultivated. Singing, which he had avoided for so long, became a metaphor for everything one dares to do when one stops trying to do it perfectly.

Georg Haberler (born in Graz in 1985) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he graduated in 2015 under Erwin Bohatsch. Coming from a background in classical painting, Haberler ultimately found his artistic signature in working with the sewing machine, which today forms the central tool of his practice. In 2021, he received the State of Styria’s Award for Contemporary Visual Arts; in 2024, he was an artist-in-residence at the Foundation for Contemporary Art in Accra, Ghana.

Text: Christine Schmelter