In her exhibition "Wiener Blut" at the MAK Gallery Béatrice Stähli shows recent works in which the taming and disciplining of both human and animal movements play a central role. Stähli addresses the delicate borderline between the psychological and physical treshold of pain, voluntary and involuntary physical torment, the mistreated body and the human body performing fascinating feats.

Since the beginning of the 90s Béatrice Stähli has used taxidermal specimens in her artistic works. For centuries taxidermal specimens have served as traditional elements of interior decoration, whether as wall objects or rugs in front of fire places or beds. In palaces and mansions they are part of the standard interior decoration denoting social prestige as wall decorations or exotic collection of trophies.

For Béatrice Stähli, a Swiss artist living in Vienna, however, this "material status symbol" becomes a tool to diagnose human behavior, an expression of social symptoms of a profoundly pathological society that is unable to solve the conflict between nature and culture inherent in human beings.