Opening: November 5, 2025, 6 p.m.; exhibition until Nov. 18, 2025 University of Arts Linz, Hauptplatz 6: EG, UG1, UG2 & splace
Exhibition with works by students and graduates of the University of Arts Linz
Opening
University of Arts Linz, Hauptplatz 6
6.00 p.m. Welcome by Brigitte Hütter
Julia Gutweniger, curator
The exhibition will befollowed by a sound performance by Daniel Hans Walter and a reading by Laura Weiss with sound by Maxemilian van der Meer.
Opening hours
MO to FR 11.00 to 18.00
SA 10.00 to 13.00
In the winter semester, the University of Arts Linz showcases the great potential of its students from 60 nations and thus the next generation of artists - and this year many works of art are of extraordinary topicality. The BestOff exhibition format, which has been established since 2003, always makes selected works created in the studios and workshops during the last two academic years accessible to a broad public. A high-caliber jury selected 45 works of art by students from a total of 136 submissions.
Julia Gutweniger, renowned filmmaker and visual artist as well as lecturer in the Painting & Graphic Screen Printing Workshop at the University of Arts Linz, was responsible for curating BestOff 2025: By borrowing from her cinematic work, the montage of individual episodes has created a large whole within the exhibition, "in which arcs can be spanned, associations formed and cross-connections established", as she says herself. Julia Gutweniger is a freelance artist in the fields of painting, graphics and film. From 2007 to 2015, she studied painting and graphics with Ursula Hübner at the University of Arts Linz. Since 2018 she has been active in artistic teaching in the field of printmaking at the University of Arts Linz, since 2023 Senior Artist in the Painting & Graphic Screen Printing Workshop. In addition to exhibitions and projects in Austria and abroad, her cinematic works in the directing duo "Villa Mondeo" together with Florian Kofler have received awards at numerous international film festivals.
Julia Gutweniger was supported by the jury, which also included filmmakers Lotte Schreiber and Anna Spanlang, photographer Anna Breit and painter Georg Pinteritsch. The selection of works by these experts resulted in the annual exhibition. Ophelia Pauline Reuter was involved in the curatorial work as a visual artist and curatorial assistant, and Josepha Krüger worked as a technical assistant. Word artist Lara Rachbauer was jointly responsible for the exhibition catalog.
The works on display in the eastern bridgehead building are a representative cross-section of the four institutes' fields of study. Sculpture, painting and drawing are on show, as are graphics, photography, video, film, design and architecture, using a wide variety of materials such as oil paint, ceramics and textiles - and the program also includes a performance and a reading with sound.