Helmut Heiss

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RANKING
Solo, Blumberggasse, Vienna, 2025
Foto© Flavio Palasciano

RANKING
Untitled (purple haze / romantic creep up)
enamel on steel, 2025
Foto© Flavio Palasciano

RANKING
Solo, Blumberggasse, Vienna, 2025
Foto© Flavio Palasciano

RANKING
Untitled (firepit)
2025
Foto© Flavio Palasciano

RANKING
Untitled (screensaver)
enamel on steel, 2025
Foto© Flavio Palasciano

RANKING
Untitled (tag a)
enamel on cambered steel
Foto© Flavio Palasciano

Der verblassende Geruch von verbranntem Zucker und dünner Rauch, so zärtlich wie zerrinnender Nebel, vermischt mit einem milchigen Lichtdunst, streichelt die hauchfeinen Härchen auf der Haut. Die schimmernden Vorhänge werden ruckartig von einem starken Windstoß aufgeweht und für den Bruchteil einer Sekunde flimmert ein helles Licht auf.

Die gekünstelte Seltsamkeit dieser Enthüllung ruft eine Idee in Erinnerung, die Traum oder Vergangenheit sein könnte: Backstage, hinter den Kulissen, im samtigen Toile-de-Jouy-Anzug ein Éclair vernaschen.

Nach der Zeitrechnung des herzförmigen Weckers auf der linken Nachtkonsole sind seitdem nicht mal 47 Stunden vergangen. Die Vorstellung von glitzernden Zuckerkristallen, die sich, so langsam und behutsam wie fallende Asche, im Körper verteilen, ist so tröstlich wie die schlaftrunkenen Schäfchen auf dem Ziffernblatt des Weckers, der zugleich wie eine Schneekugel funktioniert: Winzige Schneekristalle wirbeln beim Aufschütteln mit tanzenden Miniatur-Wölkchen herum. Nicht immer sind die Mondblumen an den unteren Rändern erkennbar. Nur, wenn die Drehung des Weckers ganz langsam - im Schneckentempo - erfolgt, sodass die Flüssigkeit gemeinsam mit den klitzekleinen Plastikteilchen an die gegenüberliegende Seite gleiten kann und man den Kopf zur Seite neigt, können die Mondblumen in ihrer vollen Pracht bewundert werden.

Blitzschnell, in Blitzgeschwindigkeit, «comme un éclair» - so schnell wie ein Blitzschlag - wird so ein Éclair angeblich verspeist. Daher, so die Vermutung, hat das elegante Gebäck aus Brandteig gefüllt mit crème pâtissière seinen Namen. Oder wegen des glänzenden Zuckergusses, der an das Aufleuchten von Blitzen erinnern kann. Die glasierte Delikatesse ist auch bekannt als Kaffeestange, Hasenpfote oder Liebesknochen und vermutlich noch 21 anderen Wörtern. Dennoch zählen diese zu den Top 3, weil:

Kaffeestange wortwörtlich im französischen mit baguette de café übersetzt werden würde

Hasenpfoten die samtigeren Katzenzungen sind

und das Versprechen von Liebesknochen länger hält als von Liebesperlen

Nach einem echten Blitzeinschlag schlängeln sich manchmal auf der Haut feine raureifartige, verzweigte Muster in Form von Blitzblumen, die als Lichtenberg-Figuren bekannt sind. Nach wenigen Stunden verblassen sie wieder und innerhalb von 48 Stunden sind sie rückstandslos verschwunden.

Text: Sarah Matysek

Lagonda
Gas Station Simmering, Vienna, 2022
Foto© Kurt Prinz

Lagonda
Gas Station Simmering, Vienna, 2022
sound performance by Mme Psychosis
Foto© Kurt Prinz

Lagonda
Gas Station Simmering, Vienna, 2022
Foto© Kurt Prinz

Features:
casio CZ-1000 digital synthesizer
fold-out strobe lights
strobe speed adjustable on both sides
dimmable headlights
warm-up function for fog machine with indicator light
fog trigger function
hinged hood

Externally, LAGONDA is reminiscent of concept sports car studies from the 1970s, with a digital keyboard installed in the cockpit instead of a steering wheel. In addition to the keyboard keys, a number of other knobs and buttons were installed to operate various sculpture-internal „features“ (such as: strobe, fog machine or spotlight). At the same time as I was developing and implementing the „machine“, Mme Psychosis composed 3 exclusive tracks, which she performed on the „solo entertainer device“.

SLIPSTREAM
Solo, FOX, Vienna, 2024

SLIPSTREAM
O.T. (curtain)
black denim, steel construction, 2024

SLIPSTREAM
Untitled (leg)
paper, cardboard, wood glue, 2024

SLIPSTREAM
Untitled (arm)
wet suit, acryl glass, hardboard, 2024

SLIPSTREAM
Untitled (PS C4)
alu-tape, paper, paper machè, 2024

16 02 24* Finish Fetish The first time I met Helmut he was leaning against the bar at AFG in ocean blue bibs. Albert introduced us with a cat-like smile, grinning at the size of the universe inside of his head. It was a decade or so ago and it was fall or maybe winter in the 2nd district. Helmut had spent the day covering the interior of a building with white walls and I wasn‘t sure if he was a teenager or working to pay against a mortgage. We talked about skating, Italy, and dialect. He helped me glue drywall together at the seams for one show, then we started collaborating on another. He made a triplearmed turntable and taught me a lesson about looking that echoes into almost every project I‘ve worked on since. A year or so later we went to Lithuania with Albert and started small fires, played around in a former KGB‘s front yard and watched the sun set from opposite sides of the earth. A couple of nights ago we talked about racing on acid. He tells me there‘s a specific pocket you can hear with the right team surrounding you. That weather becomes lost with just the right dose, and the slipstream is where you can rest in the noise. He explains speed in psychedelic terms and I nod. I think teams are for believers, terms are made of lies, and individuals made from corners. I think Helmut wants to bend the world but doesn‘t have enough logs to heat it. This afternoon I had a really nice dream about being in the mountains. I was standing with some artist friends and looking at a half pipe covered in snow and gym padding. We discussed whether it was a spine until I woke up to arguing. I had another dream about being a security guard for Conan O’Brien. It paid twenty-five an hour and we mostly spent time talking about his camera collection. I quit the job just in time to wake up for work.

As a transition I wanted to insert the show title here with some clever description of conceptually tagged fetishes, maybe a line or two about sleeping next to my shoes when I was a kid (both the Reebok pumps and the Jordans). A tidy sentence about melodic sculptures, my brother shitting into my skate shoes, belonging, and the myth of the 90s being categorized by a kind of ecstatic stability. I tried to work out some lines about consumer allegiance as millennial first order identity politics but failed. Helmut steps to the side of a parking block. We talk about objects being eaten by their surroundings, how slivers of color make brands, how surprisingly slim the margin between getting bent and bending is. He tells me that if his works need titles they’ve failed to speak for themselves and describes how denim is stitched until it becomes a curtain. I think about prestressed jeans and how watching him walk a bike can teach me about the physics of drag. I try to tune into the calm but unsettled rustling of his melodies. I ask him to build a bed for my kid but instead he finds out that our apartment is missing a wall. I like watching him stop to admire a spill, seal meaning into objects, wait for bubbles to pop. I like the way he ignores himself and folds his hands. I like watching him look for objects without names. I like making lists of things I‘ll never do. We talk about the weather when we want to forget about site. I ask him if he wants to make a showroom for perverts. When we’re too cold to say goodbye, I open the door and think about taste.

Text: Seth Weiner

CANDY OR NOT
Solo, Hyrtlgasse, Vienna, 2023

CANDY OR NOT
Untitled
curtain system, dim-foil, 2023

CANDY OR NOT
Untitled (Sidi sport s.r.l.)
paper, cardboard, wood glue, 2023

Glimpsed from the highway, Vienna seems like a big city.
For a brief moment, you have this possibility in your head.
Through a naturally grown accumulation of skyscrapers from different decades, it emerges as an idea - and disappears like a shadow in the night.
(Heiss Helmut, 14 October 2023, A23 Vienna towards Prague)

Material formations, curves above curves, and bent in different directions at the same time,
are rather related to the double helix - or the curvature of space-time - than to architecture and design.

A forced connection of parts,
without a catalyst
but under pressure
and with time.
A certain unease arises from the contrast between the razor-sharp precision - and the simplicity of the materials used.

In case of Candy or not candy, the Japanese TV show, the participants bite into objects, that are either made of sugar - or exactly what they represent. The purpose is not to question certainties, but solely the comic effect, the image created and the performative expression of the celebrities in the absurd situation.

The sculpture therefore has something to do with a moment
with a monument
and the question of correct use dosen’t apply

Here it’s obvious: this is paper. You might think that it is supposed to trick you into something real -
but that is misleading.
Appropriating the material, relating to it, personally and politically.
And the form derives from an object of everyday life.
Like falling for an advertisement
Capture the good life!

One possible reaction is the AHA-experience. Often frowned upon, it includes a moment of shock and reflection of your own position, and that can be uncomfortable.
But then there are some little traps and exaggerations, little jibes within the object.

Helmut Heiss copies his own cycling shoes and reconstructs them out of paper. This takes forever, it takes all the time in the world. Through the precision in the approach and the material properties of different types of paper exactly reflect the material of the original. Trying to achieve this level of precision creates errors and glitch-moments because they are no longer “true to themselves”. In order to represent something, you actually have to work out the essentials and are not to get lost in the details. In Helmut Heiss works, paradoxically, a critical compactness emerges, which makes now everything appear essential - like a parallel reality, something that shows the vulnerability of a symbol.

Text: Thea Moeller

CV

Helmut Heiss (b. 1976, Bolzano) is an artist based in Vienna. His practice explores spatial and social structures through installations, collaborative formats, and curatorial experiments. He studied in Bologna and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 2019, he co-founded Stiege 13, an independent art space in a Viennese municipal housing complex, followed in 2023 by Stiege Hills, a treehouse gallery in the Italian Alps. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions, including at Fox Vienna, Efes Linz, Center for Contemporary Art Tbilisi, and venues in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Chicago.

2025:
co-founder of the exhibition-format LEGENDE SOLUTIONS (with Rainer Grilberger), Vienna
Ranking, (solo), Blumberggasse, Vienna
AU-DESSUS DES CAPITALES #2&3 (group exhibition), Scherben, Berlin & Glassbox Nord, Paris

2024:
TOMBOLA VII, (group exhibition), ES49, Vienna
GEKAUFT! UND DANN?, (group exhibition), Musa, Vienna
AU-DESSUS DES CAPITALES #1 (group exhibition), Salzamt, Vienna
NEUE ARBEITEN & BAR, (group exhibition), Wonnerth Dejaco, Vienna
DER BOTANISCHE GARTEN SPEISING, (group exhibition), Gallgasse , Vienna
COME TI VIENE 4, (group exhibition), Meshit, Vienna
SLIPSTREAM, (solo), FOX, Vienna

2023:
CANDY OR NOT, (solo), Hyrtlgasse 21, Vienna
PLAY ESCAPES, (group exhibition), Spazio CUT, Bolzano
A PLACE TO LIVE, reimagining Tbilisi, (group exhibition), CCA, Tbilisi
CLUB LIAISON, Wiener Festwochen, Liesl Raff & guests: Mme Psychosis & Helmut Heiss, Vienna
co-founder of the exhibition-format STIEGEHILLS (with Daniel Ramirez & Bernhard Fuchs), Silandro
SCHWEISS, (duo-show with Stefan Brandmayr), global-international, Vienna

2022:
SHOW DOWN, (group exhibition), Tankstelle Simmering, Vienna
SPRITEGATE, (group exhibition), Vienna
HALBE TAUBE, (with Thea Moeller and Elisabeth Windisch), Köln
STAATSSTIPENDIUM, BMKÖS, Vienna

2021:
HAUS WIEN, (group exhibition), Vienna
ES IST VIEL PASSIERT (group exhibition), Apartmenthotel Marienhof, Vienna
POSSESSED FOOD (solo), efes 42, Linz
TAKING MY THOUGHTS FOR A WALK; (intervention in public-space, invited by Peter Fritzenwallner) cooperativ project between Dortmunder Kunstverein and Urbane Künste Ruhr, Dortmund

2020:
CURATED BY_BRIGITTE HUCK: SCOTT CLIFFORD EVANS, MURDERKINO, (group exhibition), Charim Events, Vienna DAIHATSU ROOFTOP GALLERY, Vienna

2019:
co-founder of the exhibition-format STIEGE13 (mit Daniel Ramirez & Bernhard Fuchs), Vienna
HEADQUARTERS#1,(group exhibition) Schneiderei.Home.Studio.Gallery, Vienna
PARALLEL, artist statement, Vienna
FUELSAVE, (group exhibition), gas-station Simmering, Vienna
ÜBER DAS NEUE, (group exhibition) invited by SORT, Belvedere 21, Vienna

2018:
NOTHING SEEMS QUITE REAL WITHOUT AN AUDIENCE, Ve.sch, Kaltenleutgeben, Niederösterreich
NEW ISSUES (group exhibition by Karo Dausien), Pina, Vienna
CHAMPAGNOLA (group exhibition), Westwerk, Hamburg
PUBIC VIEWING, (group exhibition) Notgalerie, Vienna

2017:
A GARDEN,(group exhibition) Obere Amtshausgasse, Vienna
BILGERI – SCHEUTZ ESTATE, apartment show, Vienna
WIR KÖNNEN ALLE NOCH UMFALLEN (Gruppenausstellung), Fluc, Vienna
SAMMLUNG HEISS (solo), Kluckyland, Vienna
Helmut Heiss: YOU BEST PUT STICKS IN YOUR BOOTS, (solo) new yörg, Vienna

2016:
GRUPPENAUSSTELLUNG, Studio Liebhartsgasse, Vienna
HARTER HAGEL (with Christoph Harringer), Kaeshmaesh, Vienna
OPENING (Gruppenausstellung), Atelier Hasnerstrasse, Vienna
BONES CAN FOOL PEOPLE (Helmut Heiss, Katharina Höglinger, Noële Ody), Kluckyland, Vienna
DELICIOUS SANDWICHES, rooftop Gruppenausstellung, Downtown, Los Angeles
HELMUT HEISS & THEA MOELLER, (Duoshow) Venice 6114, Los Angeles

2015:
A CONFLICT OF SITE, Helmut Heiss & Katharina Höglinger; P//O//P, Toronto
LIVING AND WORKING, (with Albert Allgaier, Helmut Heiss, Seth Weiner), Malonioji 6, Vilnius
DIENSTAG ABEND, (group exhibition) Baba Vasa, Shabla, Bulgarien
SCHANIGARTEN # 2 (mit Albert Allgaier), Afg, Vienna
NRG (with Carmen Loch and Thea Moeller), Lenikus Studios, Vienna
NO RISK NO FUN, (group exhibition) Projektraum Viktor Bucher, Vienna
PÖSIE, (group exhibition) Friday Exit, Vienna
ASDF, (group exhibition) Hochhaus Herrengasse, Vienna
ADRIA (group exhibition) cafe Adria, Vienna

2014:
THE SELF – SUSTAINABLE SCULPTURE SYMPÓSION (mit Gruppe Uno Wien), Kasko, Basel
ME ME MIRROR, Ha’riviera Seaside Gallery, Bat Yam, Israel
PARALLEL VIENNA (with Gruppe Uno Wien), Altes Zollamt, Vienna
HANS IM GLÜCK (with Gruppe Uno Wien) Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna
WE NEVER LEARN #2, Prater, Vienna
EIN LETZTES MAL VOR DER SOMMERPAUSE (II)…, Vesch, Vienna
SUPERTITELSOWIESO (with Gruppe Uno Wien), Lust gallery, Vienna
SCULPTURE ME (with Gruppe Uno Wien), Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna
DIE GLORREICHE SIEBEN, Fluc, Vienna
KAMINARI ZOKU, afg, Vienna

2013:
LISTE 18, invited by Deuxpiece, Basel
LA DESINVOLTURE DE NOS GANGSTERS, (group exhibition) Les salaisons, Paris
BE THE PARTY (PLEASE DON’T GO), (solo)Slow Gallery, Chicago
BUSSI BABA, (group exhibition) Elephant Art Space, L.A.