In it's Local Artists program section focusing on filmmaking with a connection to Upper Austria, Crossing Europe 2025 dedicates a Special to the visual artist, filmmaker and environmental activist Edgar Honetschläger.
ESSAY
In order to approximate the captivating oeuvre of Edgar Honetschläger, one may imagine the Linz-born visual artist, filmmaker and environmental activist as a kind of Faustian figure: sitting bent over books and pictures, studying the world and marveling at its beauty. Realizing, however, that his world is in flames. He ponders solutions. Instead of entering into a pact with the devil, this scholar scrutinizes his own perspective. This is how since the 1990s, Honetschläger has created genre- and boundary-busting films where highly complex philosophical movements of thought combine with an almost childlike joy of the visual experiment. The camera is filming sand whirling through the air or self-crafted paper butterflies, is observing the mechanics of seemingly inoperable apparatuses or putting enchanting microscopic images on the big screen. In the process, one can lose oneself in allegorical labyrinths or follow the fascinating play of surfaces. Both leads to a similar outcome: One sees the world with different eyes. Even though his films, screened at the Berlinale, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, or Viennale, are composed of the widest variety of moods and plots, his oeuvre nevertheless joins together into a remarkably coherent unease about human civilization. Honetschläger has doubts about the actions of mankind, and yet he traces the potential within us capable of imagining a better world. As a commuter between different cultures (Austria, USA, Japan, Italy, Brazil) and in contradiction to the mechanisms of the art and cinema scene, he always takes the position of the one who does not belong and who has a greater awareness for this very reason. Those who will open themselves to his films will sooner or later have to scrutinize themselves. Honetschläger reminds us of the fact that identities are unstable and realities fluid. His art seeks a radical change of perspective. In order to change something in this world, what has to be done first is to scrutinize one’s perspective of it. Why does cinema consistently trust in the same ideas of realism, or art in that of central perspective, his works ask. Why are we telling ourselves the same tales of doom over and over again when it has not helped in stopping it? There are not just humans speaking in Honetschläger’s works: one gets a sense of following animals, plants, atoms, even space and time itself. In fact, in his films donkeys and ants are talking about life on Earth – the only question is whether we are able to listen. In that sense, his oeuvre reminds us of classical myths where the condition of the world is constantly reshaped in pictures and words. Cultures are mixing, shapes are emerging from each other, creatures are transforming, and spirits and human beings are living side by side. There is one crucial difference to these myths, however: Honetschläger is the inhabitant of a dying planet, his art contradicts the so-called Anthropocene. He takes playful excursions to explore various emotions in this encounter with Earth, a planet endangered by mankind. There is an anarchic kind of humor, political insurgency, irony, abstraction, solastalgia (wistfulness caused by losing one’s familiar environment), a return to what history tells us and a renewed marvel at the beauty of the world. An important role in his films is played by ants. These animals are not only crucial to biodiversity but are also a metaphor for mankind’s pursuits on Earth. It can be no coincidence that in the myth of Faust, there is a chorus of ants talking about gold. The very gold that plays an important part in mankind’s treatment of nature. Honetschläger’s chorus of ants utters warnings. Those who will listen will be able to grasp the strong interconnection between a tiny creature and the fate of the earth. (Patrick Holzapfel)
Edgar Honetschläger
The solo exhibition Give Nature a Break - Edgar Honetschläger (11.4. - 17.8.2025) at the Nordico Stadtmuseum Linz can be visited free of charge during the festival with a festival pass or an accreditation pass.
