> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.catapult-platform.art/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Why Jakob Lena Knebl’s Sommerfrische at the Marmorschlössl Stayed With Us - URL: https://www.catapult-platform.art/jakob-lena-knebl-marmorschloessel-bad-ischl/ - Published: 2026-09-29T15:08:34.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-30T14:51:01.000Z - Description: We travelled to Bad Ischl already admiring Jakob Lena Knebl’s work. At Sommerfrische, mythology, fashion, art history and humour meet the extraordinary setting of the Marmorschlössl in an exhibition that stayed with us long after we left. - Author: Dominique Catherina Foertig - Tags: Exhibition, Sculpture & Installation, Material & Sculpture, Myth & Folklore ## Dear **Jakob Lena Knebl**, What Did You Do to Us? Dear Jakob Lena Knebl, we came to Bad Ischl because of you. We have admired your work for a long time, not only for what you make, but for the way you seem to look at the world. You find connections where others might see separate things. A body can become furniture, an object can take on a personality, mythology can enter architecture, and humour can sit beside something deeply serious without diminishing it. We thought we knew what to expect from Sommerfrische. We did not. As we climbed through the Kaiserpark, the Marmorschlössl appeared ahead of us, and then we saw the two wooden huts in the field beside it, standing on their enormous chicken-like legs with the mountains behind them. Before we had even entered the building, the exhibition had already changed the way we were looking at the landscape. Inside, the relationship between your work and the Marmorschlössl felt almost effortless. You did not overpower the building, and you did not disappear into it. You met it. The carved wood, patterned rooms, coloured carpets and windows became part of the experience, while your works seemed to answer them in return. The legs emerging from the wall in Art of Noise, the extraordinary horses and cascading hair of Lucky Lady, the owl watching from upstairs in Observer, nothing felt isolated. Everything seemed to be speaking to something else. Your work allows things to remain open. Beautiful without becoming precious. Intelligent without becoming distant. Funny without becoming lightweight. It gives us ideas to follow, but it also lets us simply look, feel, laugh, wonder and come back again. There is something deeply human in that. And then there were the student works. Seeing **Olha Horiunova’s** Date mit dem Erlkönig within Sommerfrische added another layer to what we were already feeling. Her work was allowed to exist fully inside the exhibition without losing its own voice. That openness made the whole experience feel larger rather than more crowded. We left the Marmorschlössl talking about what we had seen, and the conversation continued long after we were back in Vienna. Certain images stayed immediately, the horses, the hair, the legs, the owl, the two huts in the field. But what stayed even more strongly was the feeling behind them, that for a few hours you had rearranged the world just enough for us to see it differently. So this is simply a thank you. For the beauty, the humour, the generosity of the imagination, and for reminding us that an exhibition can still surprise us, move us and make us want to look again. We came to Bad Ischl because of you. And we’d do it again in a heartbeat. Thank you, Dominique & Ernst --- ![Jakob Lena Knebl’s Ada and Mary and lucky Lady in Sommerfrische at the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_6874-1.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Sommerfrische*, installation view at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026\. ## Inside *Sommerfrische* at the Marmorschlössl For everyone who was not standing there with us, here is why *Sommerfrische* got under our skin. The Marmorschlössl was built in the nineteenth century as a retreat for Empress Elisabeth, and it brings a very particular atmosphere to the exhibition. This is not a neutral space. The dark carved wood, decorative windows, patterned surfaces and intimate rooms are constantly present, and **Knebl** works with that rather than against it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3843.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3854.jpeg) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Sommerfrische*, installation view at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026\. Her works do not feel temporarily placed inside a historic building. They settle into it. Colours echo one another, patterns meet other patterns, and the distinction between artwork, furniture, body and interior repeatedly begins to blur. In *Art of Noise*, patterned legs emerge directly from the wall and step into ceramic boots. Nearby, *Lucky Lady* brings together two horse forms beneath extraordinary lengths of red hair. Upstairs, *Observer* draws the eye towards an owl within an environment of tapestry, forest imagery and layered surfaces. ![Jakob Lena Knebl’s Lucky Lady with long red hair at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl--lucky-lady--sommerfrische.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Lucky Lady*, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026\. ![Jakob Lena Knebl’s Die Schwebende, a white seated figure before tall wooden windows at the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3856.jpeg) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Die Schwebende*, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026. The individual works are strong, but much of the pleasure of *Sommerfrische* comes from what happens between them. You begin to look at the room and the artwork almost simultaneously. A carpet changes how you read a sculpture. A window, a piece of furniture or a wall covering suddenly enters the visual conversation. The Marmorschlössl is not simply the place where the exhibition happens. It shapes how the exhibition is experienced. ![Jakob Lena Knebl’s Ada and Mary and Emil in Sommerfrische at the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3842.jpeg) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Ada and Mary*, 2024, left, and **Emil*, 2025, right, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. Photo: \[credit\] ## When Bodies, Furniture, Fashion and Mythology Meet Transformation runs throughout **Knebl’s** work. At the Marmorschlössl, that transformation extends beyond the individual objects. The rooms themselves begin to participate. A sculptural body can echo the curve of a piece of furniture, fabric can pick up the rhythm of curtains or wall coverings, and an artwork can feel momentarily inseparable from the architecture around it. What is fixed and what is staged, what belongs to the building and what belongs to the exhibition, becomes increasingly difficult to separate. ![Jakob Lena Knebl installation with moss-covered forms and a suspended green figure at the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebls-sommerfrische-bad-ischl.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Sommerfrische*, installation view at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026\. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3904.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-exhibition-1.jpeg) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Sommerfrische*, installation view at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026 There is a lot to discover, but *Sommerfrische* never makes understanding every reference a requirement for enjoying what is in front of you. Sometimes it begins with colour or material, sometimes with humour, and sometimes with the sheer visual pleasure of standing in front of two horses with magnificent hair and temporarily forgetting that you are supposed to have a clever response. And why shouldn’t you? ![jakob lena knebl art installation ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-marmorschloessel.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Sommerfrische*, installation view at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026 ![Jakob Lena Knebl’s Friends of Mine, two patterned figures facing each other at the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3853.jpeg) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Friends of Mine*, 2026, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. Questions around identity, transformation, desire, representation and the body are woven through the exhibition, but they emerge as you spend time with the works rather than being handed to you in advance. Looking can come first, while understanding is allowed to arrive in its own time. The references are there if you want to follow them further. *The Floating One*, for example, draws on the work of German sculptor **Ernst Barlach**, while **Knebl** transforms the reference into something unmistakably her own. Elsewhere, the Baba Jaga motif moves between folklore, architecture and the outdoor sculptures encountered on the approach to the Marmorschlössl. The further you move through *Sommerfrische*, the more these connections begin to accumulate, without everything needing to be neatly resolved. That openness is part of the pleasure. ![Jakob Lena Knebl’s All Seeing I, a dark textile installation with long hair-like material at the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-bad-ischl.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **All Seeing I*, 2026, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-installation-art.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-austrian-artist.jpeg) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, Close up: **All Seeing I*, 2026, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. ## Student Positions Inside **Knebl’s** World Another important part of the exhibition appears upstairs. **Knebl**, professor of Transmedia Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, includes works by students and artist friends alongside her own. What interested us was not simply that these positions were present, but how naturally they exist within the exhibition. They do not feel like a separate educational programme or an appendix added after the main event. Their works occupy the same rooms and have enough space to establish their own identities. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/Olha-Horiunova--installation.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3897-1.jpeg) ****Olha Horiunova**, **Date mit dem Erlkönig*, 2025, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. ![Olha Horiunova’s Date mit dem Erlkönig, 2025, installed at the Marmorschlössl in Bad Ischl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/Olha-Horiunova--marmorschloessel.JPG) ****Olha Horiunova**, Close-up: **Date mit dem Erlkönig*, 2025, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. **Olha Horiunova’s** *Date mit dem Erlkönig* from 2025 particularly caught our attention. A lace-covered table is laid with candles, glassware and small objects, while behind it rises a tall nest-like form made from branches. The scene feels almost domestic at first, like a table prepared for someone who has not yet arrived, but the rough structure looming behind it shifts that familiarity into something less certain. Attraction and unease begin to occupy the same space, which made the work’s movement between fear, curiosity and awe much more immediate for us. We were seriously impressed. These positions also alter the rhythm of the exhibition. **Knebl’s** world remains completely recognisable, while other voices are allowed to enter it, add to it and pull the viewer somewhere else. Rather than disrupting *Sommerfrische*, their presence makes its world feel more open. ![Jakob Lena Knebl, hybrid swan-like figure in the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-austrian-artist.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, Close-up: **Me, Myself and I*, 2026, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. ![Jakob Lena Knebl’s Sommerfrische combining sculpture, fabric and historic interiors at the Marmorschlössl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-stuffed-animals-1.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Me, Myself and I*, 2026, installation view in **Sommerfrische*, Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl. ## Why *Sommerfrische* Stayed With Us By the time we left, the two Baba Jaga huts we had encountered on the way in no longer felt like an introduction standing apart from the exhibition. They belonged to the same shifting relationship between object, architecture, body and landscape that had unfolded inside the Marmorschlössl. ![Jakob Lena Knebl installation view Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-austria.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Sommerfrische*, installation view at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-installation-exhibition.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl--bad-ischl--marmorschloessel.JPG) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, **Sommerfrische*, installation view at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026 That is what stayed with us most. Not one work that could be neatly declared the highlight, but the way *Sommerfrische* changed how everything around it was read, including the building itself and, eventually, the landscape outside. We arrived already admiring Jakob Lena Knebl’s work. We left understanding a little better why. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-hut-installation.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/09/jakob-lena-knebl-hut-sculpture.jpeg) ****Jakob Lena Knebl**, outdoor installation view from **Sommerfrische*, Kaiserpark at the Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl, 2026. --- **Sommerfrische** **Artist:** Jakob Lena Knebl **Exhibition:** Sommerfrische **Venue:** [ Marmorschlössl ](https://www.ooekultur.at/location-detail/marmorschl%C3%B6ssl-bad-ischl?ref=catapult-platform.art) **City:** Bad Ischl, Austria **Curator:** [Lucas Cuturi](https://www.instagram.com/lucas%5Fcuturi/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **Dates:** May 1, 2026 – October 31, 2026 **Hours:** May–Sep: Mon–Sun 9.30 am–5 pm Oct: Mon–Sun 10 am–4 pm Tours in October on request **Address:** Jainzen 1, 4820 Bad Ischl (access via Götzstraße) **Photography:** Dominique Foertig --- **About the Artist** **Jakob Lena Knebl** Jakob Lena Knebl is a Vienna-based transmedia conceptual artist whose work examines identity through history, art history, fashion, religion and mythology. She works both solo and in a duo with Ashley Hans Scheirl, with whom she represented Austria at the 2022 Venice Biennale, and is professor of Transmedia Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, regularly bringing students into her projects. [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/jakoblenaknebl/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **About the Location** **Marmorschlössl, Bad Ischl** The Marmorschlössl in the Kaiserpark of Bad Ischl was built in the nineteenth century as a retreat for Empress Elisabeth. Run by OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH, it hosts a major contemporary art exhibition each summer, following Ai Weiwei in 2024 and Erwin Wurm in 2025. [Website](https://www.ooekultur.at/location-detail/marmorschl%C3%B6ssl-bad-ischl?ref=catapult-platform.art) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marmorschloessl/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **About Catapult Contemporary - Art Platform Submission** This is an exhibition review published by Catapult — an independent editorial platform for contemporary art, based in Vienna. We publish exhibition reviews, artist features, interviews, and critical context, with a focus on emerging and mid-career practices from Europe and beyond. [catapult-platform.art](https://www.catapult-platform.art/) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/catapultcontemporary/?ref=catapult-platform.art) Want to be featured? [Submit your work →](https://www.catapult-platform.art/submit/) ##