DOMESTICATED @ THE HALL
with Josefin Arnell, Brilant Milazimi, Charlotte Gash and Eric Gyamfi
The equestrian statue immortalizes leaders by pairing human authority with the animal’s natural strength. In these works, the horse is not merely a subject but a vehicle through which power, conquest, and social order are made visible. One mythic example is the Amazons, the legendary women warriors, almost always depicted on horseback. Their mastery of horses symbolized both their independence and their defiance of patriarchal norms. The Amazonian horsewoman was both fascinating and threatening: a figure of freedom and danger, embodying an alternative social order in which women wielded military and political power.
This tension resonates in contemporary culture, where the horse continues to represent not only nobility and beauty, but also the possibility of resistance and disruption. At the same time, horses are deeply entangled in the politics of domination. Police forces across the world still deploy mounted units to control demonstrations and public gatherings. The physical height and imposing presence of the animal transform the officer into a towering figure of authority. In such moments, the horse becomes an unwilling instrument of repression, its natural strength co-opted into the machinery of state power. This practice underscores the long human tendency to harness animal vitality for purposes of hierarchy and control.
Yet, these images also invite a deeper question: are viewers truly seeing what they are looking at? Behind the familiar iconography of horse and rider lies a web of power relations, projections, and desires. What appears as beauty or mastery may in fact conceal histories of domination and domestication. What if everything we believe in is a Fata Morgana, a Trompe l’oeil, a mirage of meaning that both reveals and deceives? The exhibition asks us to look again, to recognize how easily vision itself can be trained, tamed, and directed, much like animals.
Curated by Salvatore Viviano
The exhibition featured current residency artists and Austria based artists.
With heartfelt thanks to our sponsors and partners :
Ottakringer Brauerei, Vöslauer Mineralwasser, School for Independent Film Vienna
Exhibition duration: 08.11.2025 - 13.12.2025
Exhibition Opening: Saturday, November 8, 2025, 6-9 pm @ The Hall
Opening hours: Thu – Sat 4 - 7 pm and by appointment: welcome@partresidency.at
Curator’s Tours: 04.12.2025, 5 pm and 13.12.2025, 5 pm
