Talk with Herbert Brandl in November 2007
Robert Fleck: Yesterday, the pictures were taken down in Venice and packed. The sky was gray, it rained, and everything was a little bid sad. On entering your show in Innsbruck and viewing the new pictures you have produced since the Biennial then what comes to mind is: "After the Biennial you just kept going at thing, full tilt!” Often after a biennial artists have a tough time. But you have simply taken up where the pictures for Venice left off.
Herbert Brandl: I was in fact not “exhausted” by the opening of the Biennial, as it did not really involve stress for me, I was completely and utterly wrecked. Since in October 2006 I had succeeded in postponing my scheduled shows I had time on my hands.
RF: Many visitors were taken by the intensity of your work for Venice. When setting up the show we were likewise surprised at how the Venetian light interacted with your paintings. Things that had not been visible in your studio in Venice suddenly emerged.
HB: In my studio in Vienna, it is the gray Viennese light that prevails, with a few particles of red in it. The colors remain more restrained. One tends to perceive the surface of an image there. In Venice, by contrast, the colors start to glow in that incredibly strong red light and thanks to the great humidity. The heyday of Venetian painting had much to do with this. And perhaps secretly I had counted on this effect.
RF: When at work in Vienna did you conceive the pictures with the effect of light in Venice in mind?
HB: No. It was clear that precisely the red tones would come out far more strongly in Venice than the green or blue tones. There was a crass difference in the effect the paintings had in Vienna as opposed to Venice, and we had to take down the largest of them as a result. The painting became completely decorative, whereas in Vienna it had seemed almost fissured, pale and gray.
Peter Weiermair: You also elected to present a painting outdoors. That was unusual, even for the Biennial. For the first time a painting hung outdoors irrespective of what happened there. There was no roof over it.
HB: The picture remained unprotected, without varnish or a roof of any kind. But it survived, a painting with “wilderness skills” – a miracle of art.
RF: The painting is “crazy” as it consists of three different pictorial approaches that have not been finally united. In Venice, we tried to hang more “harmonious” paintings on this wall. Yet interestingly enough it the disharmonious painting worked far better outdoors.
HB: Friends advised me against even taking the painting to Venice.
Audience: How did you feel about the risk that the painting might get damaged?
HB: It simply interested me. And if I expose it to the elements, then obviously I am prepared for whatever may happen. I expected more in the way of sprayer-attacks or pigeon shit (laughs). The restorers told me it would not survive the sun for longer than four weeks. The painting definitely changed during the five months of the Biennial. But it did not crack, the rain simply washed a few patches bare. Some parts are now more strongly emphasized. Others are now softer. At documenta 9 back in 1992 I already opted to place a painting outside, an outsider image. In Kassel it rained a lot, but the painting remained perfect. Oil painting has something of a protective coating about it.
RF: Last year, the choice of canvas size was possibly the key decision made preparing your show in the Biennial. The canvases stood around in your studio for several weeks. Then the whole thing gradually evolved.
HB:. I did not want some “monumental formats”, and I also did not want to skillfully hang small formats. So I kind of felt my way into the issue of format. Although I paint the large pictures each in one go, considerable time goes into preparing them beforehand. It often takes a tortuous eternity to decide on the color. I don’t know what it is that takes so long, but it is irritating.
RF: So what’s next? Have you an agenda?
HB: No, no idea!
RF: So over the next few months it could go in any number of directions?
HB: Possible. I will no doubt come up with quite different results, maybe dwarfs rather than mountains.
⇒ Biography
⇒ Julian Heynen about Herbert Brandl
⇒ Herbert Brandl in the Austrian Pavilion
⇒ Peter Pakesch to Herbert Brandl
⇒ Bibliography
⇒ Achille Bonito Oliva about Herbert Brandl
⇒ Hans Ulrich Obrist talks to Herbert Brandl
⇒ Martin Prinzhorn on Herbert Brandl
⇒ Norman Rosenthal about Herbert Brandl
⇒ Conversation with Herbert Brandl (May 2007)
⇒ Talk with Herbert Brandl in November 2007
Robert Fleck: Yesterday, the pictures were taken down in Venice and packed. The sky was gray, it rained, and everything was a little bid sad. On entering your show in Innsbruck and viewing the new pictures you have produced since the Biennial then what comes to mind is: "After the Biennial you just kept going at thing, full tilt!” Often after a biennial artists have a tough time. But you have simply taken up where the pictures for Venice left off.
Herbert Brandl: I was in fact not “exhausted” by the opening of the Biennial, as it did not really involve stress for me, I was completely and utterly wrecked. Since in October 2006 I had succeeded in postponing my scheduled shows I had time on my hands.
RF: Many visitors were taken by the intensity of your work for Venice. When setting up the show we were likewise surprised at how the Venetian light interacted with your paintings. Things that had not been visible in your studio in Venice suddenly emerged.
HB: In my studio in Vienna, it is the gray Viennese light that prevails, with a few particles of red in it. The colors remain more restrained. One tends to perceive the surface of an image there. In Venice, by contrast, the colors start to glow in that incredibly strong red light and thanks to the great humidity. The heyday of Venetian painting had much to do with this. And perhaps secretly I had counted on this effect.
RF: When at work in Vienna did you conceive the pictures with the effect of light in Venice in mind?
HB: No. It was clear that precisely the red tones would come out far more strongly in Venice than the green or blue tones. There was a crass difference in the effect the paintings had in Vienna as opposed to Venice, and we had to take down the largest of them as a result. The painting became completely decorative, whereas in Vienna it had seemed almost fissured, pale and gray.
Peter Weiermair: You also elected to present a painting outdoors. That was unusual, even for the Biennial. For the first time a painting hung outdoors irrespective of what happened there. There was no roof over it.
HB: The picture remained unprotected, without varnish or a roof of any kind. But it survived, a painting with “wilderness skills” – a miracle of art.
RF: The painting is “crazy” as it consists of three different pictorial approaches that have not been finally united. In Venice, we tried to hang more “harmonious” paintings on this wall. Yet interestingly enough it the disharmonious painting worked far better outdoors.
HB: Friends advised me against even taking the painting to Venice.
Audience: How did you feel about the risk that the painting might get damaged?
HB: It simply interested me. And if I expose it to the elements, then obviously I am prepared for whatever may happen. I expected more in the way of sprayer-attacks or pigeon shit (laughs). The restorers told me it would not survive the sun for longer than four weeks. The painting definitely changed during the five months of the Biennial. But it did not crack, the rain simply washed a few patches bare. Some parts are now more strongly emphasized. Others are now softer. At documenta 9 back in 1992 I already opted to place a painting outside, an outsider image. In Kassel it rained a lot, but the painting remained perfect. Oil painting has something of a protective coating about it.
RF: Last year, the choice of canvas size was possibly the key decision made preparing your show in the Biennial. The canvases stood around in your studio for several weeks. Then the whole thing gradually evolved.
HB:. I did not want some “monumental formats”, and I also did not want to skillfully hang small formats. So I kind of felt my way into the issue of format. Although I paint the large pictures each in one go, considerable time goes into preparing them beforehand. It often takes a tortuous eternity to decide on the color. I don’t know what it is that takes so long, but it is irritating.
RF: So what’s next? Have you an agenda?
HB: No, no idea!
RF: So over the next few months it could go in any number of directions?
HB: Possible. I will no doubt come up with quite different results, maybe dwarfs rather than mountains.
⇒ Biography
⇒ Julian Heynen about Herbert Brandl
⇒ Herbert Brandl in the Austrian Pavilion
⇒ Peter Pakesch to Herbert Brandl
⇒ Bibliography
⇒ Achille Bonito Oliva about Herbert Brandl
⇒ Hans Ulrich Obrist talks to Herbert Brandl
⇒ Martin Prinzhorn on Herbert Brandl
⇒ Norman Rosenthal about Herbert Brandl
⇒ Conversation with Herbert Brandl (May 2007)
⇒ Talk with Herbert Brandl in November 2007
