
Golden Hour Handshakes – Group Exhibition at Schloss Goldegg, Salzburg AT
Curated by Nanna Kaiser & Hanna Besenhard
Artists: Anne Schmidt, Julian Siffert, Mira Mann, Miruh Frutiger & Nigel Gavus
The exhibition “Golden Hour Handshakes” deals with a form of simultaneity between past and present. It sees itself as a platform on which traditional rituals and stories from alpine regions meet the challenges and questions of today’s world. Temporal perspectives take on a narrative role. One of the project’s guiding principles, the handshake, is a timeless gesture and marks the moment of an encounter at eye level – something to hold on to. This gesture playfully negotiates various overlaps. It is a symbolic gesture that can be observed in all social classes, especially in the economic dynamics of the Western world. The “golden handshake” stands and symbolizes as a payment that marks the end of an employment relationship – be it through early retirement or termination. Traditional structures reach out to contemporary contexts. The collective approach and the points of contact create a space for encounters. (Text: Hanna Besenhard)


Untitled (Machine filled with glycerin soaps, 2024)
An old cigarette vending machine stands reimagined as a soap dispenser, offering its product freely. Each bar of soap comes in a different color, hinting at subtle yet ambiguous meanings that resist clear interpretation. Embedded within each soap is a service manual, which forms a secondary layer of the artwork. Accessing the manual requires the viewer to use the soap, washing their hands until it dissolves. This act is conceptually significant: as the viewer uncovers the manual and „understands“ the work, its material form is fully consumed and destroyed.
Within the context of the Exhibition „Golden Hour Handshakes“, the work reflects on the symbolic and transactional nature of gestures. Washing hands is at once repetitive and ritualistic, evoking cleansing and transformation.
„Untitled“ invites open interpretation while subtly critiquing the art markets‘s focus on material permanence and capital value. Through its simplicity and ambiguity, this work explores the fragile balance between understanding, use, and preservation, leaving viewers to navigate the interplay between what is revealed and what is lost.

Service Manual (Xerox Print in Glycerin Soap, 2024) – Series of 30 (inside the Machine)
„To uncover the service manual, the viewer must use the soap, washing their hands until the text is revealed. In this process, the soap dissolves, and with it, the artwork vanishes. This tension between discovery and destruction raises questions about value and engagement: is the true worth of the piece in understanding it, or in preserving it as an object? If left untouched, the soap becomes a speculative commodity, gaining potential value over time; if used, it exists only in the fleeting act of interaction.„

Note to myself (Super8/16mm Film to Video, 5:00 min, Loop, 2024)
„Note to Myself“ is a poetic film diary, captured on Super 8 and 16mm film, blending fragments of personal life with fictional elements that blur the lines between memory and imagination. Projected on a carton surface, the material underscores the fleeting, discarded nature of the images, reflecting the impermanence of memory. A mosaic of moments unfolds through sharp cuts, each evoking a sense of time and place. In one scene, the sound of sirens over a bunker lingers, quietly invoking the shadows of war. The video loop subtly suggests the cyclical nature of life, where moments and histories quietly repeat, fading and resurfacing over time.