About us

SHOWING STYRIA

With an innovative reinterpretation of the traditional provincial exhibitions, SHOWING STYRIA presents socially significant topics from an artistic and scientific perspective every two years.

The format launched by the Province of Styria in 2021 is also being realised in its third edition by the Universalmuseum Joanneum. After the first edition focussed on the development, identity and future of Styria, the second edition in 2023 explored the diversity of life at the main location Tierwelt Herberstein.

The upcoming edition of SHOWING STYRIA dives deep into the world of the Eggenbergs and opens up parallels to our present day.

Voices on SHOWING STYRIA

Image Credits

Marko Mele

Scientific Director of the Universalmuseum Joanneum

We are delighted that after two very successful editions, we will be organising SHOWING STYRIA in 2025 at one of our most traditional locations, the World Heritage Site Schloss Eggenberg. Visitors will be given a unique, unadulterated view of the time of the Eggenbergs and the residents of the palace. The special thing about SHOWING STYRIA is the combination of a location with a mobile element that makes it possible to engage with current social issues in a dialogue between disciplines. We would like to retain this model in 2025. The pavilion will complete the show, translating the supposedly bygone world of the Baroque and its challenges into the present. We would like to thank the Provincial Government of Styria for its trust and the opportunity to realise the exhibition once again, as well as all those involved in the upcoming show.

Image Credits

Paul Schuster

Head of the department Schloss Eggenberg

This exhibition will change your perception of Eggenberg forever. We want to make Schloss Eggenberg as a work of art speak for itself and tell you about the many previously unknown stories and messages it harbours. The state rooms and the Planetary Room will return to their original role: they will become stages. Stages for the grand orchestration of a princely family that has managed to mould its failure into an eternal success story with the help of a work of art, a grand illusion that has been maintained for centuries. 2025 will surprise everyone, even those who know Eggenberg.

Image Credits

Günther Holler-Schuster

Curator pavilion

The pavilion will not deal directly with the historical facts of Schloss Eggenberg. However, there are some remarkable parallels between then and now. The situation during the Thirty Years' War, with its raging recession and the Little Ice Age, is not entirely dissimilar to ours today. War, war-weariness, economic and social upheaval and a fear of climate change characterise our times. Art reacts to this in many different ways. This will also be evident in this project. Established and young as well as local and international positions will concretise this connection between historical and contemporary processes with their projects.

Image Credits

Karl Peitler

Head of the department Archaeology and Coin Cabinet

With the Coin Cabinet and the Archaeology Museum, the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ Schloss Eggenberg has two venues that are perfect for enriching the story of the rise, splendour and fall of the Eggenbergs with surprising details. Rare Eggenberg coins and medals are on display in the Coin Cabinet, which also sheds light on the monetary history behind the collapse of the coinage system at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. The Archaeology Museum will use a digital reconstruction to transport visitors back to Baroque Graz, thus creating a link between the current World Heritage Sites of Schloss Eggenberg and the Historic Centre of Graz.