Julian Opie
Last summer we were stuck in town and were often out in the park. I began to notice the way people were lounging in various sized groups, their bodies in a variety of positions that were both evocative and very human. Each group looked classic in some way and reminded me of Manetâs famous painting. Our bodies and limbs and the effects of gravity and balance mean there are a certain number of positions possible where we can relax and interact at the same time.
Pretending to text on my phone I took surreptitious photos of the groups.
I asked my daughter and three of her friends to come to the studio with a range of casual clothes and take up the positions I had noted in the parks. My assistant and I took photographs of them from all sides and I set about trying to draw them with a series of straight lines, as if they were pieces of furniture.
It proved very difficult. I am used to tracing and copying photos as flat images, but this was different. We called the models back and used an iPhone app to scan them. This worked much better, avoiding the distortions of photography and giving a lot more information. Still it was tricky, and I had to repeatedly get my assistants to turn my drawings into 3D computer models that I could spin and adjust in space. Each of the four models took up the various poses in different outfits, and a group of around 24 figures began to emerge. I planned to put these into picnic style groups with contrasting poses.
I placed these statues in a virtual gallery and used VR goggles to enter the space with them. The programme allowed me to see all 24 statues and to move them around into my preferred groups of four. Previous statues have always been flat like extruded drawings and this allowed me to cut them from flat sheet material like plywood, bronze or aluminium. More recently, using straight lines, I built sculptures from steel I-beams and wooden bars. But square cut materials were not working with these new figures that bent in various directions. Itâs hard to explain but you can cut and angle a square tube in one direction, creating a mitred corner, but as soon as you twist this the corner goes out of line and wonât work. The only solution was to switch to round tube which can twist cleanly in any direction. This was a revelation. I became aware of round tube everywhere. As handrails on the stairs down to the underground painted gloss black. As barriers at the football stadium painted gloss white. Stainless steel hoops on the pavement to lock up your bike. With this round tube technology, I could manage almost any angle and also create curved lines.
For some years I have been looking at wooden statues from Indonesia from the late 19th and early 20th century. These were made by tribal people of the Austronesian culture across Borneo and Sulawesi, Vietnam and Sumba. They are very frontal, but in some cases I noted that the knees were bent and began to find some where the whole body was folded into a squatting position. It was this that suggested to me the possibility of breaking the flat method I had always used. I began to look at the people around me in a different way, noticing their poses and how their limbs allow for various solutions and complex planar folds. In the airport I noticed people leaning and crouching against the wall and this gave me the idea for an alternate set of figures where both the floor and the wall are used as supports for the figures.
Usually an artist puts paintings or sculptures into a gallery and they are looked at by the audience who are also in the space but in another, parallel sense. I wanted to people the space with images of the audience itself. I plan to inhabit the gallery as if it were a public park or a waiting room. with images of the audience itself. I planned to inhabit the gallery as if it were a public park or a waiting room.
Text: Julian Opie
Exhibition opening: June 11, 2022
Duration: June 11 â July 30, 2022
PREVIEW
Gerwald Rockenschaub
Galerie Krobath is pleased to host its first solo exhibition of Gerwald Rockenschaub (*1952 in Linz, lives and works in Berlin). Under the title “astrobot(n)ic / philanthropic / this/that interlude (vision)” Rockenschaub presents pieces created especially for this exhibition, which oscillate between abstraction and representationalism and are a direct reflection of the artistâs continuing perceptual-psychological exploration. On the one hand, there are large-format composite pieces made of Plexiglas in which different elements are pieced together into a single motif so seamlessly, that the individual layers are only apparent upon closer inspection. The question of what one is actually looking at is also thematized in his new group of engravings, which comprise some of Rockenschaubâs most subtle work. At first glance, they appear to be monochrome Plexiglas pieces, the surfaces of which reflect the surrounding space. However, when viewed from a different angle, finely engraved drawings emerge, sparking strings of associations.
The images we see, or think we see in the engravings, change depending on our viewpoint and the way the light hits them. They could be interpreted as a political message, as a kind of challenge to constantly change our point of view. But perhaps another interpretation can be gleaned by the title “astrobot(n)ic / philanthropic / this/that interlude (vision)”. It hits us like sound poetry. The words, not unlike the minimalistic lines of the engravings, invoke countless associations with reality. Due to the rhythmic emphasis, one could easily imagine the cryptic slogan as a rapped refrain in a piece of electronic club music. That would make Rockenschaubâs new engravings something like visual music or musical visions that set us in motion â and maybe even get us dancing in the end.
Caroline Corleone | Theresa Eipeldauer | Anna Meyer | Muntean/Rosenblum | Haleh Redjaian | Esther Stocker | Katja Strunz | Sofie Thorsen | Jenni Tischer
CAROLINE CORLEONE
Born in Erlangen, G. Lives and works in Berlin, G.
Caroline Corleoneâs art touches on the fundamental painting movements of the past decades as abstract expressionism or color field painting. However, being on the pulse of time, she often finds inspirationâšin post-media strategies of copying and digital montage. She likes to use fabrics, plays wildly with pat- terns, or âpaintsâ with her sewing machine on canvas. Her artworks draw the bow between the real, the digital, and the painted: Artificial forms of imitated nature meet urban interventions, abstract brush- strokes cross fragments and leftovers of repetitive digital patterns.
The new series of works is inspired by the textile designer Mathilde Flögl (Wiener WerkstĂ€tte). The more or less random shapes of Flögl’s textile cuts from the MAK archive (on-site research in February 2019) are the starting point for new compositions, enhanced with graphic âdrawingsâ by sewing machine. The pattern series PPI * finds a continuation in the Flögl series, in that given patterns find form as fragmentary substitutes in blow ups as independent artistic works.
THERESA EIPELDAUER
Born 1985 in Vienna, A. Lives and works in Vienna, A
The point of departure for Jenni Tischerâs latest exhibition fortune at the Krobath Gallery was two different kinds of found objects: on the one hand, there are numerous vintage knitting needles, which the artist purchased at a warehouse sale and then turned each one of them into artfully knitted sculptures and wall objects.
The basic element in Eipeldauerâs drawings is the line, which is constantly multiplied thus preempting industrialprocesses. Reproduction techniques used since the 20th century are very present in her works. Eipeldauer also treats the transition from the individual art piece to environment in her works playfully and with artful ease. The urge to define her three-dimensional works either as an ensemble or as individual works of art automatically recedes towards the background and the decision is left to the viewers. As Heike Maier-Rieper aptly puts it, the transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional works results in âan ambivalence between transparency and disguiseâ. From: Heike Maier-Rieper. âTheresa Eipeldauer.â in: 95-2015 Jubilee evn collection. Wien: Verlag fĂŒr moderne Kunst, 2015.
ANNA MEYER
Born 1964 in Schaffhausen, CH. Lives and works in Vienna, A.
In her works (paintings, drawings, models, interventions in public spaces) Anna Meyer addresses modern global culture and the socio-political and feminist issues of neoliberal societies in an ironic and provocative manner.
âIn the past few years, in the face of neo-liberal globalisation and the increasingly manifest climate catastrophe, painting in particular has presented itself as an aesthetic titbit, or as âa fetish and a pointless gimmick for those who would ignore the impending flood,â as the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno put it. But Anna Meyerâs paintings have never been part of this game. On the contrary, her socio-critical reflections always go hand in hand with her visual motifs and their formal implementationâ. From: Raimer Stange âNostalgia for an age yet to comeâ.
The current drawings in the exhibition were created in the first phase of the Corona lockdown in March 2020 and thus establish a very current reference to time.
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Josef Bauer | Hertha Hurnaus | Fritz Panzer | Sofie Thorsen
JOSEF BAUER
1934 born in Wels (A), Lives and works in Linz and Gunskirchen (A).
Since the 1950s, some artists â including Josef Bauer â turned to language in order to break the mold in sculpture. Like many of his contemporaries, Bauer was searching for an artistic vocabulary that would make it possible to comprehend the world again. A world that was facing huge upheavals and reforms after the end of the Second World War. A world âin crisisâ presents artists, in particular, with great challenges and the question of which stories can be told when lived history goes far beyond the limits of the imagination. A world that has fallen apart must be put back together again or its stories told on a different level.
Bauerâs work was influenced by media and information theories of the 1960s. “
“At the beginning of the sixties, I was interested in the body in space, and I focused on the area between the body and its surroundings.” Josef Bauer.
When Bauer set off to appropriate the world on a new, abstract level, writing became increasingly important to him in formulating his âPicture Languagesâ. From: Harald Krejci âExplorations, 2019.
HERTHA HURNAUS
1951 born in Linz (A). Lives and works in Vienna (A).
The photographs of Hertha Hurnaus are dedicated to the works of the architect Vladimir DedeÄek, which were built between 1960 and the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The photos, however, are not documentary in nature, but rather an homage to an era of change in the field of architecture. As the images focus on interiors and details, the buildings are only recognisable to experts. They emphasise the common features of these structures: colour compositions that are reminiscent of abstract works of art. Located barely an hourâs drive from Vienna, these buildings are not unlike spaceships that have just returned to earth from an optimistic future. From: Oliver Elser âHertha Hurnausâ, 2015.
FRITZ PANZER
1945 born in Judenburg (A). Lives and works in Vienna (A).
According to Wikipedia this technique was first used in China 2000 years ago. A wooden frame and human hair for mesh were used to make the screen and leaves were used for stencils. This is probably how the very first screen prints were made.
Applying colour through a screen of fabric. Thatâs how I would describe the technique I used to create these works. I donât want to use the term âscreen printingâ, as reproduction was never my intention. These works are unique.
Screen printing is a very efficient method to apply multiple layers of colour. Here it was done in the simplest possible manner: I used one of my motherâs curtains as mesh to make the screen, the stencils were made of pieces of newspaper and the colour pigments were mixed with hide glue. Fritz Panzer, 2021.
SOFIE THORSEN
1971 born in Aarhus (D). Lives and works in Vienna (A).
The engraved drawings relate to the colour and shape of the stone. The thin line is in the foreground thus lending the surface of the stone a three-dimensional quality, which was less perceptible before.
The stones themselves are random found pieces, leftovers of masonry and construction work. Fragments of an entity which will never become whole again. Sofie Thosen, 2021.
The exhibition at the Pinakothek der Moderne, MĂŒnchen presents the objects related to Bauhaus in the collection of the Museum on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of Bauhaus. As one of five contemporary artists, Sofie Thorsen was invited to examine Bauhaus works from the museum collection. Her construction elements, large-format raw wire models, refer to 8 small objects by the artist and architect Herrmann Finsterlin, the Didyms, where Didym stands for twin or double. Partly toys, partly geometrical models, partly prototypes, these colorful combinations of simple shapes deny any clear definition, but they could have been intended as a prototype of a construction game.