Gallery Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art Vienna Shows Jakob Gasteiger

Tuesday, 10 October 2006 10:33

Vienna, Austria - The Vienna based artist Jakob Gasteiger represents a particular, not at all Austrian position in contemporary Austrian art: his work is determined by strong formal precision, unemotional headstrong distance from any genial attitude, the concentration on the working process itself, serialization, all marked by the constant examination of boundaries between sculpture and painting.  On exhibition until 18, November.

The „wallpiece“, an extensive tissue and carbon paper work, will form a central part of the exhibition.  This work leads to a new unexpected and atmospheric perception allowing deep blue ruminant views to it’s inside.  There are also new expressive moments in Gasteigers combed paintings attracting the observers attention: expressive and pictorial emotions appear under the minimalist colored surface achieved by applying acrylic on the canvas and combing horizontal and vertical ridges into it.  Due to the similarities in their composing principles, Gasteigers work is appreciated by numerous excellent contemporary composers (from Morton Feldman, Beat Furrer, Helmut Lachenmann up to Galina Ustvolskaya) forming an appropriate, sensitive cover for their sound storage media: the slightly modulated repetition of an infinite „tender touch“, constant packing and sudden stop, ecstatic fire breaking through the surface, all according to the composition rhythm of the comb.

Gasteiger keeps on blurring the boundaries between sculpture and painting: while his paintings meet some of the conventions of what makes a painting – a rectangular canvas which is hung up on a wall – the treatment with the comb-like instrument supports the sculptural character, leaves it slightly dominant.  The constant examination of boundaries between sculpture and painting is reflected in the coloring of his work: the monochrome ones present the sculptural intent of the artist meanwhile the colored ones are evidence of the pictorial conceptional formulation.