The exhibition «Papagena and other Odd Fishes» at the Musée Visionnaire is an opulent show of creativity and originality where life and art become one or life is performance. The oeuvre of Bernhard Vogelsanger, self-proclaimed «Impresario of the Opera Schwamendingen», is not widely known. Placing his work at the center, the Musée added pieces by other artists who also thematized opera, dance, costumes, theater or saw life as their own personal stage. All of the exhibited artists are or were unconventional people, odd fishes, and cannot be integrated into the established context of the art world. As artists, they forged ahead towards their own Gesamtkunstwerk, to stage the passions they harbored inside. Passion and desire, not convention and commerce, are the forces that drove them.
