Amazon meets Phrygia

From 1620/25 to 1636, the Fleming Peter Paul Rubens worked on a landscape painting, which he repeatedly expanded and finally added a scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses: It tells how Jupiter lets the people of Phrygia sink into the mud because they have disregarded the right of hospitality. Only the poor old couple Philemon and Baucis are saved because they had entertained Jupiter and his companion Mercury, who were travelling incognito.

Around 1830, a masked garment is created in the western Amazon region. The storm demon O'ma takes shape in bark bast, tree resin and other plant materials. He is the most powerful and dangerous spirit known to the Ticuna, an indigenous group in Brazil. O'ma punishes people who disregard the laws of nature and is himself a force of nature who invades the human world during the girls' maturing ceremony.

In the exhibition Higher Powers, the two works from such different cultures and times enter into a dialogue that opens up surprising spaces for thought. In a dialogue between the curators Claudia Augustat and Gerlinde Gruber, these are explored and questioned as to their significance for our present day.