ART CIRCLE Austria, Wolfgangsee 2027

ART CIRCLE is a festival founded in Slovenia in 2011 composed of annual art residencies, exhibitions, performances, artist talks and other cultural events. These events take place throughout the whole year in Slovenia with satellite events in the neighboring countries of Italy and Austria.

The primary goals of ART CIRCLE International are:

• reenforcing the relationship between art, community, and joie de vivre
• increasing access to international contemporary art in non-urban regions
• connecting culture with the economy and tourism

• promoting international cooperation

• generating cultural networks

St. Wolfgang, located on the shore of the beautiful Wolfgang Lake, has a very long history. Its name comes from Saint Wolfgang who was the bishop of Regensburg and came to this area around 976 AD. According to historic stories he built the very first church here with his own hands. This iconic building still sits in the heart of St. Wolfgang and looks out over the lake and the scenic mountains with the impressive Schafberg.

Art, culture and tourism have always been a part of St. Wolfgang. After the canonization of Saint Wolfgang the town of St. Wolfgang became a major pilgrimage site, being the fourth largest in the world during the 15th and 16th centuries. The many pilgrims coming to St. Wolfgang caused the region to prosper and arts and culture to flourish. Some iconic art works, like the polyptych created by Michael Pacher in 1481, can still be seen in St. Wolfgang and are testimony of its importance.

In the 1920s and 1930s the Wolfgang Lake was also the site of an artist colony (Zinkenbacher Malerkolonie) founded by Viennese artists, some of which were part of the worldfamous Viennese Secession. This artist colony was an early form of the “art residencies” we know today and brought artists together to be inspired by each other and the breath-taking Austrian landscape.