Voodoo Jürgens returns to Tulln with a personal exhibition

Musician Voodoo Jürgens has returned to his hometown of Tulln with an exhibition of his paintings and sculptures by his childhood friend Georg Holzmann, ORF reports. The show opens ahead of Jürgens’ concert at the Donaubühne concert venue and marks what the two artists describe as a reconciliation with the town.

The exhibition at the Tulln Kunstwerkstatt art workshop brings Jürgens back to a place where his musical career began. As a young musician, he found a rehearsal room there with his first band. Decades later, the multiple award-winning musician is returning to exhibit paintings in that same former rehearsal space.

Alongside Jürgens’ striking images of people on the margins of society, the exhibition features sculptures by Holzmann, a trained instrument maker who is now a sculptor. Both artists come from Tulln and share countless memories of the town, both positive and negative.

Finding peace with their hometown

The exhibition is titled “1. Tullner Mal und Bastel Halli Galli”, or “1st Tulln Painting and Crafting Halli Galli”. Jürgens and Holzmann describe themselves as sensitive and thoughtful people who closely observe their surroundings. Yet they say the preparations for the exhibition have been lively and chaotic.

“I have the feeling that I am a little more introverted, but I still have the urge to go out into the world, while you seem to be extroverted as an artist because you stand on stage, but in reality you then keep to yourself,” Holzmann told Jürgens.

Jürgens agreed. “I am not extroverted, even if people might assume that. I would not use the term ‘showman’ for myself, for example,” he said.

Jürgens dedicated one of his songs to Tulln, describing it as the place he came from and ran away from, where people talked behind each other’s backs and everyone knew everyone. The song recalls a difficult childhood and adolescence, including his father’s imprisonment, his mother crying, bullying and his first experiences with drugs.

“For me, it was always clear that I would go to Vienna,” Jürgens said. He now enjoys returning to Tulln and said he had become more forgiving with age, including towards his hometown.

Returning to Tulln for an exhibition with Holzmann, whom he lost touch with for several years, meant more to him than coming back for a concert, Jürgens said. Holzmann said the two were connected to the town “for a very long time, probably forever”. They had wanted to leave, he said, but had made peace with their hometown.

A flag marking their shared past

Shortly before the opening, the two artists raised a flag outside the Kunstwerkstatt on Tulln’s Danube promenade. It carried the words “ICH WAR HIER”, meaning “I was here”. The statement referred to their shared past, but this time it was made not by young people trying to escape, but by artists who had returned with greater wisdom.

The exhibition can be viewed by request until Jürgens’ concert at the Donaubühne in Tulln on August 14.