Herbert Brandl - Austrian Pavilion - 52nd. International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia
In his exhibition in the Austrian Pavilion, Herbert Brandl is showing 13 paintings of differing sizes. He created all of them in 2007 specially for the pavilion. The artist, who was born in 1959 in Graz, in the Steiermark, and lives in Vienna, is now known among international experts, thanks to a series of important exhibitions and projects, as one of the most original and powerful painters to appear in recent years. His solo show at the Venice Biennial is a major artistic gesture showing a wide personal repertoire.
Herbert Brandl has deliberately not structured the pavilion on one series, on one recognizable artistic concept, rather he has given room to the variety of his painting and the opportunities of painting in general. Especially visible is the competent use of even monumental picture sizes as well as the very contemporary representation of strengths and visual experiences of our present, precisely in the medium of painting. Together, the paintings make use of all bright colors. The position of the pictures in the pavilion is based on dialogs about the differences between the paintings.
“I decided on Herbert Brandl because he has been producing artwork of international standing for years now. He is fully prepared to take risks and has a sure artistic feel. And Herbert Brandl took the full risk, which I expected of him in private, in realizing the pavilion. In a certain way, it is completely crazy and daring to take on an exhibition in this pavilion with such different pictures and sizes. However, this shows the dimension that Brandl gives his artistic work. The result is one of the densest, most varied and most lasting experiences of painting which I have ever had”, according to Robert Fleck, Commissioner of the Austrian Pavilion at the 52nd international art exhibition of the Venice Biennial.
A freely-hanging painting incorporates the inner courtyard of the pavilion – originally designed as a sculpture courtyard – into the exhibition. Despite the pavilion’s long main halls, this creates free circulation between the pictures and between the halls in the inner and outer areas, which are equal in spatial terms.
Several architectural modifications have been made in the interior of the Austrian Pavilion for the exhibition. “Vellum” (white fabric) has again been hung in the two main rooms, which Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the pavilion in 1934, used during his time as Austrian Biennial commissioner (1948-1956). A new, light gray floor has been laid throughout the entire pavilion so that the Venetian light and the colors of the walls and paintings have a better effect. The entrance was completely rebuilt in order to create a calm environment for the paintings. The inner courtyard, conceived by Josef Hoffmann in 1954, has been incorporated into the exhibition thanks to the painting hanging in the air.
The paintings can be regarded as both abstract and figurative. The pictures for Venice strongly express the opportunities created by the constant oscillation between the two tendencies. The paintings, which at first glance appear to contain no objects, let figural thoughts of images – in most cases by means of distant memories of photographs – shine through. In the painting of this decade, which is dominated by a sharp opposition of figurative and abstract approaches, Brandl’s personal dissolution of this opposition, his competent combination of the abstract and the figurative, represents a meaningful vision beyond the pure topicality of the medium.
Artist: Herbert Brandl, born in 1959 in Graz (Steiermark), lives in Vienna. Numerous solo and group shows. Took part in “documenta 9”, Kassel 1992. Since 2004, Professor of Painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Academy of Art).
Commissioner: Robert Fleck, born in 1957 in Vienna. Austrian Federal Curator for Visual Arts 1991-1993. Since 2004, Director of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Member of the selection committee for the French Pavilion in Venice (2003 proposal Annette Messager and 2006 proposal – with Christine Macel – Sophie Calle).
⇒ How do you create a Biennial pavilion? (Jan. 2007)
⇒ The Austrian Pavilion
⇒ Artists and Commissioners of the last 30 years:
⇒ What does a national pavilion offer? (Essay, Feb. 2007)
⇒ History of the Austrian Pavilion (Essay, April 2007)
⇒ Herbert Brandl - Austrian Pavilion - 52nd. International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia
In his exhibition in the Austrian Pavilion, Herbert Brandl is showing 13 paintings of differing sizes. He created all of them in 2007 specially for the pavilion. The artist, who was born in 1959 in Graz, in the Steiermark, and lives in Vienna, is now known among international experts, thanks to a series of important exhibitions and projects, as one of the most original and powerful painters to appear in recent years. His solo show at the Venice Biennial is a major artistic gesture showing a wide personal repertoire.
Herbert Brandl has deliberately not structured the pavilion on one series, on one recognizable artistic concept, rather he has given room to the variety of his painting and the opportunities of painting in general. Especially visible is the competent use of even monumental picture sizes as well as the very contemporary representation of strengths and visual experiences of our present, precisely in the medium of painting. Together, the paintings make use of all bright colors. The position of the pictures in the pavilion is based on dialogs about the differences between the paintings.
“I decided on Herbert Brandl because he has been producing artwork of international standing for years now. He is fully prepared to take risks and has a sure artistic feel. And Herbert Brandl took the full risk, which I expected of him in private, in realizing the pavilion. In a certain way, it is completely crazy and daring to take on an exhibition in this pavilion with such different pictures and sizes. However, this shows the dimension that Brandl gives his artistic work. The result is one of the densest, most varied and most lasting experiences of painting which I have ever had”, according to Robert Fleck, Commissioner of the Austrian Pavilion at the 52nd international art exhibition of the Venice Biennial.
A freely-hanging painting incorporates the inner courtyard of the pavilion – originally designed as a sculpture courtyard – into the exhibition. Despite the pavilion’s long main halls, this creates free circulation between the pictures and between the halls in the inner and outer areas, which are equal in spatial terms.
Several architectural modifications have been made in the interior of the Austrian Pavilion for the exhibition. “Vellum” (white fabric) has again been hung in the two main rooms, which Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the pavilion in 1934, used during his time as Austrian Biennial commissioner (1948-1956). A new, light gray floor has been laid throughout the entire pavilion so that the Venetian light and the colors of the walls and paintings have a better effect. The entrance was completely rebuilt in order to create a calm environment for the paintings. The inner courtyard, conceived by Josef Hoffmann in 1954, has been incorporated into the exhibition thanks to the painting hanging in the air.
The paintings can be regarded as both abstract and figurative. The pictures for Venice strongly express the opportunities created by the constant oscillation between the two tendencies. The paintings, which at first glance appear to contain no objects, let figural thoughts of images – in most cases by means of distant memories of photographs – shine through. In the painting of this decade, which is dominated by a sharp opposition of figurative and abstract approaches, Brandl’s personal dissolution of this opposition, his competent combination of the abstract and the figurative, represents a meaningful vision beyond the pure topicality of the medium.
Artist: Herbert Brandl, born in 1959 in Graz (Steiermark), lives in Vienna. Numerous solo and group shows. Took part in “documenta 9”, Kassel 1992. Since 2004, Professor of Painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Academy of Art).
Commissioner: Robert Fleck, born in 1957 in Vienna. Austrian Federal Curator for Visual Arts 1991-1993. Since 2004, Director of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Member of the selection committee for the French Pavilion in Venice (2003 proposal Annette Messager and 2006 proposal – with Christine Macel – Sophie Calle).
⇒ How do you create a Biennial pavilion? (Jan. 2007)
⇒ The Austrian Pavilion
⇒ Artists and Commissioners of the last 30 years:
⇒ What does a national pavilion offer? (Essay, Feb. 2007)
⇒ History of the Austrian Pavilion (Essay, April 2007)
⇒ Herbert Brandl - Austrian Pavilion - 52nd. International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia
