Heimo Zobernig
Untitled, 2018
Untitled, 2018
© Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018
Photo: Archiv HZ | Courtesy Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid
Photo: Archiv HZ | Courtesy Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid
Collection
Acrylic on canvas
100 x 100 cm
Heimo Zobernig (b. 1958) began his professional career in the mid-1980s after graduating from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1983. His work often begins with an investigation of a given set of artistic principles, and manifests in forms spanning painting, sculpture, film, video, installation, architectural and graphic design and performance. Best known for reappraising the aesthetic principles of Modernism through contemporary trials of its main emblems, and layered references to their most notable iterations, his experiments in all of these media represent an extensive exploration of the parameters of artistic production. His treatment of each medium is carried out with a levelled consideration of its specific legacy, tradition, individual properties and previous employment in art history, and gives his work a critical dimension that varies in tone. Indeed, at times his approach to his main subject matter has been interpreted as ironic or humorous, undermining traditions upheld as fundamental to the Western canon. At other times his curiosity conveys a more sincere desire to question what constitutes a successful art object. Along all of these lines he joins a substantial list of artists who, in like pursuits, made significant contributions to developments in abstraction in Europe and the United States, and later in Minimalism and Conceptualism, birthing forces which continue to hold sway in the landscape of contemporary art.
In painting especially, the forces and conditions of different and competing value systems fall subject to Zobernig’s watch. Not only does he isolate, deconstruct and toy with the medium’s primary constituents in his own experiments with line, shape, and color. He often does so to the effect of performing or imitating gestures made by 20th century giants in geometric abstraction, abstract expressionism and later developments in Minimalism and Conceptualism. The marks in Untitled (HZ 2018 — 071)” (2018), in their stunted curvature, give the appearance of masking tape, as used by grid and hard-edge painters to prepare their canvases for the application of clear, straight lines. They are, however, decidedly un-straight, contorted into forms resembling more organic matter in a way which collapses diametrically opposed theories of rational geometry and free expression. It is one of a series of paintings by Zobernig made after the year 2011, in which he began to incorporate gestural marks to his paintings after a long period of experimentation with the grid - a decision inspired by a visit to a Picasso exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zurich in that year. More recently, his paintings have looked at lineages contained within the history of the medium. His 2019 exhibition at Simon Lee, Hong Kong consisted of paintings inspired by Picasso’s interpretation of Edouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe(1862-63), itself a work containing references to Titian’s Concert champêtre (c. 1509), and an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi entitled, The Judgement of Paris (ca. 1510-20). These recent studies of artistic reference reflect his ongoing investigation of reappearing motifs, tropes and gestures over time, and own reproduction of these in his own works. As Isabelle Graw identified in a Texte Zur Kunst article profiling Zobernig in the magazine’s December 2015 issue, “The Canon,” the artist “not only engages certain aspects of the canon in order to change it, but … has taken on the process of his own work’s canonisation and the ‘making of the canon’ as a key theme.”[1] Across all media, Zobernig’s is a practice committed to its investigation of art’s inner and external operations. – Elsa Gray
[1] Isabelle Graw, “Canon and Critique: An Interplay; Heimo Zobernig,” Texte Zur Kunst, December 2015, pp. 50-57.
100 x 100 cm
Heimo Zobernig (b. 1958) began his professional career in the mid-1980s after graduating from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1983. His work often begins with an investigation of a given set of artistic principles, and manifests in forms spanning painting, sculpture, film, video, installation, architectural and graphic design and performance. Best known for reappraising the aesthetic principles of Modernism through contemporary trials of its main emblems, and layered references to their most notable iterations, his experiments in all of these media represent an extensive exploration of the parameters of artistic production. His treatment of each medium is carried out with a levelled consideration of its specific legacy, tradition, individual properties and previous employment in art history, and gives his work a critical dimension that varies in tone. Indeed, at times his approach to his main subject matter has been interpreted as ironic or humorous, undermining traditions upheld as fundamental to the Western canon. At other times his curiosity conveys a more sincere desire to question what constitutes a successful art object. Along all of these lines he joins a substantial list of artists who, in like pursuits, made significant contributions to developments in abstraction in Europe and the United States, and later in Minimalism and Conceptualism, birthing forces which continue to hold sway in the landscape of contemporary art.
In painting especially, the forces and conditions of different and competing value systems fall subject to Zobernig’s watch. Not only does he isolate, deconstruct and toy with the medium’s primary constituents in his own experiments with line, shape, and color. He often does so to the effect of performing or imitating gestures made by 20th century giants in geometric abstraction, abstract expressionism and later developments in Minimalism and Conceptualism. The marks in Untitled (HZ 2018 — 071)” (2018), in their stunted curvature, give the appearance of masking tape, as used by grid and hard-edge painters to prepare their canvases for the application of clear, straight lines. They are, however, decidedly un-straight, contorted into forms resembling more organic matter in a way which collapses diametrically opposed theories of rational geometry and free expression. It is one of a series of paintings by Zobernig made after the year 2011, in which he began to incorporate gestural marks to his paintings after a long period of experimentation with the grid - a decision inspired by a visit to a Picasso exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zurich in that year. More recently, his paintings have looked at lineages contained within the history of the medium. His 2019 exhibition at Simon Lee, Hong Kong consisted of paintings inspired by Picasso’s interpretation of Edouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe(1862-63), itself a work containing references to Titian’s Concert champêtre (c. 1509), and an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi entitled, The Judgement of Paris (ca. 1510-20). These recent studies of artistic reference reflect his ongoing investigation of reappearing motifs, tropes and gestures over time, and own reproduction of these in his own works. As Isabelle Graw identified in a Texte Zur Kunst article profiling Zobernig in the magazine’s December 2015 issue, “The Canon,” the artist “not only engages certain aspects of the canon in order to change it, but … has taken on the process of his own work’s canonisation and the ‘making of the canon’ as a key theme.”[1] Across all media, Zobernig’s is a practice committed to its investigation of art’s inner and external operations. – Elsa Gray
[1] Isabelle Graw, “Canon and Critique: An Interplay; Heimo Zobernig,” Texte Zur Kunst, December 2015, pp. 50-57.
Heimo Zobernig (born 1958) is an Austrian artist who works in a variety of media from painting and sculpture to site specific installation and design.
Zobernig attended the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Künste), Vienna in the late 1970s and graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts (Hochschule für angewandte Kunst), Vienna in 1983.
This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.
Zobernig attended the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Künste), Vienna in the late 1970s and graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts (Hochschule für angewandte Kunst), Vienna in 1983.
This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.