Lukas Gschwandtner

Möbelstücke etc.

June 27, 2026 – ongoing
Opening: Friday, June 26, 19:00

Chairs, benches, pedestals, vitrines, and tables are the silent partners of institutional life. They support bodies and objects, organize attention, and structure encounters, all while appearing to do very little at all. Möbelstücke etc., the first institutional exhibition by Lukas Gschwandtner, brings them to the foreground.

Intended for use as much as contemplation, Gschwandtner’s works can be sat on, leaned against, gathered around, or simply looked at. Neither fully sculpture nor just furniture, they invite both display and interaction, allowing the structures that ordinarily frame experience to become experience itself.

Conceived for the foyer of Kunstverein München, the project continues a history of artistic and architectural interventions beyond the institution’s exhibition halls that dates back to the 1990s. The starting point for Möbelstücke etc. is not merely an empty room, but a space already shaped by decades of additions, alterations, and applications. The Kunstverein, the Hofgarten, and the arcades are all marked by successive transformations, where reconstruction sits alongside preservation, and new additions exist beside older forms.

Gschwandtner approaches these transformations as something to neither preserve nor  overcome, but rather as material. Through a deliberately restricted vocabulary of canvas, metal, and glass, existing shapes are translated rather than reproduced. Volumes are pressed into surfaces, details flattened into relief, and spatial structures condensed into sculptural fragments.

The exhibition is conceived not as a fixed installation but as an arrangement whose elements may be repositioned and recombined over time. As uses change, so too can the relationships between the works. Rather than stabilizing the foyer into a final form, Möbelstücke etc. treats it as an evolving environment shaped through continuous occupation and operation. The duration of the exhibition remains equally open-ended.

Lukas Gschwandtner lives and works in Vienna. Educated in spatial design, accessory design, and traditional leather craftsmanship, he works across furniture, sculpture, and scenography. Recent exhibitions include Radio Athènes, Athens (2025); Numeroventi, Florence (2025); Peana, Mexico City (2023); and Maniera, Brussels (2021). Gschwandtner has collaborated with Acne Studios, Fendi, Lemaire, and Dover Street Market. His first theatre scenography was developed for 50 Minutes, written by Deborah Levy and directed by Tine Milz, which premiered at Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, in 2025.

Möbelstücke etc. is realized with the generous support of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport.