Current

Franz Xaver Ölzant

Robert Zahornicky

Vernissage: Wednesday, Mai 23, 2018, 7pm

On the Exhibition: Elisabeth von Samsonow and Hartwig Knack

Duration: ~~until June 30, 2018~~ extended until August 31, 2018

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Franz Xaver Ölzant | Interlacings

Throughout a continuous six decades of making art, Franz Xaver Ölzant (born 1934 in Styria, Austria) has consistently prioritized the aesthetic appearance of his pieces over his personal artistic signature. One characteristic that has emerged over the course of his long career as an artist is the fact that Ölzant has always worked with very different materials, for example bronze castings, plaster models, aluminum panels, and wire constructions. Observing his sculptural oeuvre, one sees how the artist has evolved away from figural pieces, made during his time studying at the (former) Academy of Applied Arts, and towards amorphous and vegetative works. A repeating theme that surfaces in Ölzant’s oeuvre is imperfection: Holes, bulges, knots, blemishes, and rips are characterizing features of many of his works. His sculptures, which can be classified as organic abstractions, have become more monumental over the years of his creative work, with his pieces also becoming edgier and more dynamic. This exhibition shows works in bronze and wire together with wall panels from the 1970s to 2011. Also, don’t forget to visit Franz Xaver Ölzant’s large stone sculpture in the public square across from the gallery entrance (O6, 1982, diorite, 80 x 210 x 55 cm, Palais Rottal).

		N3, Barockvase, 1979, Bronze, 87 x 81 x 55 cm
		E2, Dynamische Ringe, 1980, Bronze, 49,5 x 34,5 x 36,5 cm
		S9, 2002, Zinkdraht, Spachtelmasse, gefasst, 49 x 110 x 31 cm
W4, 2006, Eisendraht, verzinkt, 72 x 63 x 65 cm

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Robert Zahornicky | Photograms

Although the first photograms were made in the mid-19th century, they did not reach the awareness of the general public until the early 1920s. Christian Schad and Man Ray developed their “Schadographs” and “Rayographs”, and Bauhaus teacher Laszlo Moholy Nagy created a theoretical and experimental foundation for this new type of artwork around the same time. Since the photogram technique doesn’t allow perspective views, Zahornicky uses other methods to achieve the impression of three-dimensionality. For his black-and-white photograms made from 1994–2012, the artist often worked with multiple exposures. Grains of rice, thin strips of paper, and clumps of dust are rotated in a series of two or three exposures, which are then superimposed to create an image that simulates several layers of spatial depth.

The dark background often evokes a feeling of endless space. Zahornicky puts this image to use with the series of photograms titled “Cosmos” (2012). The chaotically fine structures seem to float in cosmic distance, yet are nothing other than globs of dirt made of hair, dust, and sundry gunk that gathered under the artist’s bed. The topic of micro- and macrocosms is equally relevant in the “Universe” series from 1994, in which Zahornicky drips water on a glass plate before drawing in it with his finger. Surface tension causes the smears of water to remain, creating the impression of elliptical planetary orbits, yet also evoking images of a microscopic world seen through a microscope.

The visual language of “Rice Photograms” (1994) moves between open spheres where only a few dispersed elements make up the image, from a temporal-processual intensification of the throng of grains all the way to an extreme densification that fills almost the full dimensions of the image surface.

In his two-part work The Molussian Torso (1994), Zahornicky focuses on the human figure. Especially noticeable about this large-format piece is that, in contrast to photography, the photogram technique inverts the brightness values: Bodies appear bright and ephemeral, and light appears dark.