Max Höfler and Andreas Unterweger

Before becoming an exhibition venue, Griesplatz 34 housed a legendary schnitzel joint—a late-night feeding station on Graz’s most contested square where clubbers, Ur-Austrians, and members of the many diasporas would cross paths. In Andreas Unterweger and Max Höfler’s audio installation, the tables of the former tavern host fictional pub conversations revealing the prepolitical spaces where ressentiment takes shape and consensus forms around ungrounded wishful thinking.

Spanning fifty years ending today, these dialogues reflect the changing concerns, gender roles, and stereotypes of the times, deftly navigating through typical local accents. This historical arc performs a slow drift obvious in retrospect but invisible in the present. Reconstructed from the inside by two writers from Graz (one of whom used to live in the neighborhood), the work proves that the avant-garde and the regulars’ table have always shared a postcode and that the warning signs of their potential clash are already whispering over a beer.

Max Höfler (1978, Vorau, Austria) is a writer and artist. He writes experimental and conceptual prose and regularly participates in international readings and literary performances. Between 2009 and 2017, Höfler directed the literary department of Forum Stadtpark, Graz, and he is also the editor of the literary magazine Glory Hole – nachrichten von drüben, published on a screen outside Forum Stadtpark. In 2024, he was awarded the Rotahorn Prize and, in 2025, he read at the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. Höfler lives in Graz.

Andreas Unterweger (1978, Graz) is a writer, translator, and the editor of the literary magazine manuskripte. Recent publications include the novel So long, Annemarie (Droschl, 2022) and the poetry collection Haus ohne Türen (Droschl, 2025). Unterweger has won, among others, the Akademie Graz Literary Prize 2009 and the Province of Styria’s manuskripte Prize 2016. He lives in Leibnitz.