Exhibtion period: 18 Feb 2005 – 15 Jan 2006

Proceeding from the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism represented by artists like Arik Brauer, Rudolf Hausner, Anton Lehmden, Ernst Fuchs and others, Agnes Essl presents aspects of post-war Austrian Realism from the Essl Collection. Not only does the exhibition focus on the Fantastic Realism of the 50s, but it also takes a closer look at later years with artists like Wolfgang Herzig, Franz Zadrazil and Gottfried Helnwein. More recent movements of Realism are represented through the example of artists like Johanna Kandl and Katrin Plavcak.

Arik Brauer: Brennende Frau mit Blume (1966)
oil on plywood, 63 x 70 cm
photo: archive Sammlung Essl
© Sammlung Essl Privatstiftung

Around 1950, many young artists in Austria try to find their own artistic style. In the beginning, they often orientate themselves to international movements – due to the situation in post-war Austria – and reflect Surrealism and the figuratively abstract way of painting from Paris and New York. In the ‘Art Club’ artists meet who will later embark on highly divergent directions: in a photograph from 1952, Wolfgang Hutter, Anton Lehmden, Josef Mikl and Arnulf Rainer, for example, stand harmoniously side by side. At first, Rainer takes an interest in Surrealism, but similar to Mikl he later turns to abstract painting. Together with Hollegha and Prachensky, these two artists form the group “Galerie St. Stephan” and take thereby a clear stand against the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism represented by Hutter and Lehmden.

Initially the “Viennese Fantasts" are influenced by Surrealism and Art Nouveau and integrate characteristics of these trends in their artistic creation. Mythological elements, fabled creatures, cosmic dreams, erotic fantasies and end of the world scenarios dominate thematically the otherwise quite varied approaches to narrative painting.

Wolfgang Herzig: Die Badenden (1973)
oil on canvas, 150 x 206 cm
photo: Stefan Fiedler – Salon Iris, Wien
© Wolfgang Herzig

In the 70s, artists as different as Wolfgang Herzig, Gottfried Helnwein and Franz Zadrazil react to the abstract art movements of the 60s. The narrative structure of the artworks, however, is often much clearer in this period and freed from too much interpretative content, thus far removed from the “Viennese Fantasts“. In his meticulous, photo-realistic city pictures Franz Zadrazil, for example, displays the pictorial reality of photography by means of painting, reflecting on universal questions of Realism. The meticulous figurative compositions by Wolfgang Herzig often indicate social reality through hardness, irony and sarcasm. Gottfried Helnwein’s hyper-realistic portraits take the viewer a bit later a step further by combining photographic verisimilitude with references to Vienna Actionism (bandaged, wounded drawn heads). And Peter Sengl even confronts us with the repertoire of sado-masochistic instruments of torture, which his figures are stretched into. Instead of being determined by the surface and a clear-cut narrative, however, his pictorial reality lives rather on breaks, allusions and ambiguity.

Katrin Plavcak: Double (2004) oil on olino, 150 x 120 cm photo: Galerie mezzanin, Wien © Katrin Plavcak

After a period of highly theoretical art debates, in the 90s a more figurative-realistic approach gains importance again. Johanna Kandl represents a project-related, contextual form of painting reflecting socio-political questions. Both artworks of this exhibition refer to the collectors: "Fritze Lacke", for example, symbolizes the displacement of retail stores by big department chains (Baumarkt); the second exhibit depicts the collectors’ visit to the studio of the artist. The pieces by Katrin Plavcak, the youngest artist of the exhibition, are marked by a pluralistic style of painting determined by facets of modern reality. She utilizes different pictorial models and “samples” them to construct a new reality.

Artists in the Exhibition

Arik Brauer, Josef Bramer, Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, Gottfried Helnwein, Wolfgang Herzig, Wolfgang Hutter, Anton Lehmden, Johanna Kandl, Katrin Plavcak, Peter Pongratz, Peter Sengl, Franz Zadrazil, Robert Zeppel-Sperl

Press information

IR/REAL - Tendencies of Realism in Austria from 1945 Press information in PDF format