MARIA LASSNIG
body. fiction. nature
Opening: 19 Apr 2005, 7.30 pm
Press Conference: 19 Apr 2005, 10:30 am
Exhibition Period: 20 Apr – 28 Aug 2005
Maria Lassnig: Abwehr (2000)
photo: Courtesy Friedrich Petzel Gallery, NYC |
Six years after the last major exhibition of works by Maria Lassnig in Austria, The Essl Collection now presents the first large-scale individual exhibition of works by the artist from The Essl Collection’s own holdings. The focus of the exhibition lies on paintings from the last three decades; a total of approx. 55 oil paintings and the 32-part watercolour series "Landleute" (Country People, 1996-2003) are on show. A series of sculptures Maria Lassnig started on as early as the 1970s in New York will also be presented in a museum context for the first time. Examples of Lassnig’s cinematographic work complete the exhibition. As main focal points of content, the human body, fiction and the natural world have inspired the subtitle of the exhibition: body. fiction. nature.
Maria Lassnig is internationally considered as one of the most important contemporary artists. She is regarded as a trailblazer and visionary who has left her mark on several generations of artists and has significantly contributed to a number of artistic developments. Her painting focuses on the observation of what she calls "body awareness" through the medium of painting.
"I confront the canvas as if naked, without intent, without planning, without model, without photography, and I let things happen. I do work from a point of departure, though, rooted in the insight that the only thing that is real is the feelings unfolding within the shell that is my body: physiological sensations, a feeling of pressure when sitting or lying, feelings of tension and spatial expansion – aspects that are rather difficult to put on canvas." (Maria Lassnig, 1980) |
Apart from this central theme of "body awareness" there is a whole range of themes that Maria Lassnig addresses in her work. The science-fiction paintings of the early 60s and the 80s and 90s address metamorphoses or the merging of bodies with inanimate objects, comparable to Surrealist painting. The artist portrays bodies as automats, robots, machines, animal-human crossbreeds. Lassnigs thematic wealth further ranges from reflections on painting itself (in particular, her series "Innerhalb und Außerhalb der Leinwand" / Within and Without the Canvas, 1984-1987), reflections on fauna and flora as well as on mythological and existential themes – all are well presented in the exhibition.
The recent works of Maria Lassnig have been exhibited in New York, London, Zurich and Germany in the past few years. The figures are no longer embedded in the pictorial space, the canvas around the figures remains white, blank, excluded. The lines are no longer continuous, but appear very light, extremely spontaneous, alive and expressive. The artist mainly addresses existential themes and motifs from the outer world or world of experience.
Maria Lassnig: Aus: Landleute (1996-2003)
photo: Courtesy RitterGallery, Klagenfurt |
Maria Lassnig: Kreatur (1981/82)
photo: Franz Schachinger |
Biography
From 1961-68, Maria Lassnig (born 1919 in Kappel am Krappfeld, Carinthia / Austria) lived and worked in Paris, from where she moved to New York. In 1980 she was appointed to the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna, where she was the first woman in the German-speaking world to hold a chair in painting (until 1997). Maria Lassnig has received numerous awards for her artistic oeuvre, including the Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis (in 1988), the Oskar Kokoschka-Preis (in 1998) and the Max Beckmann-Preis der Stadt Frankfurt a. M. (2004). Maria Lassnig lives and works in Vienna and Carinthia.
Press Information
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MARIA LASSNIG - body. fiction. nature Press information in PDF format |
Catalogue
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MARIA LASSNIG body. fiction. nature German and English. 164 pp, German and English, with text contributions by Sybille-Karin Moser, Silke Andrea Schuemmer, Maria Lassnig, Werner Hofmann, Christine Humpl, and with an introduction by the collector Karlheinz Essl.
Edition Sammlung Essl Privatstiftung: Klosterneuburg 2005 |
