Gotthard Graubner
dal 3/2/2010 al 24/4/2010
Segnalato da
3/2/2010
Gotthard Graubner
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz
The selected drawings and watercolours date back to the 1950s and will illustrate Graubner's artistic beginnings and his early engagement with mass and abstraction, texture and colour. On the other hand, the selected paintings cover the period from 1965 to 2005, thus embracing the 'cushion paintings', an early manifestation of a physical, three-dimensional concept of the image, as well as the quasi-classical 'bodies of colour space'.
curated by Dr. Uwe Wieczorek
In anticipation of Gotthard Graubner’s 80th birthday, the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein will show the exhibition "Gotthard Graubner. Paintings". It presents paintings, watercolours and drawings which will elucidate the artist’s understanding of his work in terms of both continuity and change.
The focal point will be the picture as a physical entity, and painting as a intensely breathing organism. The exhibition will highlight how Graubner translates the sense perception of physical nature into a tangible pictorial form by means of abstraction and reduction; how his painting links this sensitivity for the material texture of bodies and the wealth and specific qualities of colours, for example the visual dynamism of simultaneous contrast, with this tangible picture form; his understanding of painting as a union of opposites, especially warm and cold, plane and space, material and immaterial, light and shade, as a living organism relieved of any illustrative function and therefore free and “absolute”; how the artist moves the viewer to lower his gaze and contemplate, irrespective of the size and physical presence of the painting or the forcefulness of the colour.
The selected drawings and watercolours date back to the 1950s and will illustrate Graubner’s artistic beginnings and his early engagement with mass and abstraction, texture and colour. On the other hand, the selected paintings cover the period from 1965 to 2005, thus embracing the “cushion paintings” (the artist’s own term; oil on Perlon over foam), an early manifestation of a physical, three-dimensional concept of the image, as well as the quasi-classical “bodies of colour space” (acrylic and oil on canvas on synthetic cotton) in different sizes and colours, which Graubner still considers valid to this very day.
Although the selection of the works wishes to illustrate an idea – the artist’s idea of the picture and of painting – it also abides by the conviction that in Graubner’s case this idea is always preceded by a vision that gives rise to a form which then enables the idea to be discernable. Thus it complies with the conviction that seeing precedes thinking and that the eye of the viewer should therefore be presented with the maximum possible sensuous quality, contrast and harmony, changes of material, format and colour.
The exhibition will be conceived and curated by Dr. Uwe Wieczorek, curator at the Hilti art foundation in close collaboration with the artist.
Image: © Gotthard Graubner
Lysis, 2003
Opening: 04 February 18:00 (open to the public)
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
Staedtle 32 - Vaduz Liechtenstein
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday: 10am-5pm, Thursday: 10am-8pm, Closed on Mondays
Combi-ticket with the Jewish Museum Hohenems:
Adults: CHF 18.- / EUR 12.-
Reducated rate: CHF 12.- / EUR 8.-