"Dear Herbert,

A most important parallel between your work and that of Adrian (Schiess) has occurred to me, relating to the fact that painting is connected with light. Namely, the reduction of light which you both occasionally strive for. Some time ago I saw an exhibition of Adrian’s work in Geneva, in which gray boards were to be seen in a room with rather poor side-lighting as illumination. That was a year ago, i.e. at a time of the year when was little daylight. On the morning when I visited the exhibition it was especially dark. This light, which was not impaired by any artificial light, was extremely impressive. I encountered a similar situation when I visited you in your studio in the fall. There was no artificial light, dusk had just fallen and we could hardly recognize the paintings. Yet nevertheless it was almost as if one could see even more. I believe that this is something very important for color. Here something enters painting, something happens to the painting, something which is addressed in light installations from Wheeler to Eliasson and which returns to the pictorial surface in the work of Adrian and yourself. This strange paleness which radiates and defines light in a completely new way. It is a light which is far removed from the radiance of Impressionist paintings and which could even be the after-image of a brightly illuminated city. A landscape of light, a piece of nature which no longer exists and which only painting can recreate."

Peter Pakesch

From catalogue: Herbert Brandl, Adrian Schiess, Galerie nächst St. Stephan – Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna 1997

Peter Pakesch is director of the Museum Joanneum and of the Kunsthaus Graz