Art from the Province of Carinthia from 1945 to the Present

Written by Dawn Maier Tuesday, 19 January 2010 23:22

CARINTHIA, AUSTRIA - Beginning 8 July 2008, the Austrian Federal Province of Carinthia, together with eight Carinthian art institutions, presents the first comprehensive major exhibition on contemporary art and architecture in Carinthia under the title "K08 :: Emancipation and Confrontation - Art from Carinthia from 1945 to the Present". The exhibition documents that many artists from Carinthia have influenced the contemporary context of the Austrian art scene and are important beyond this region. They live and work largely outside Carinthia.

The exhibition will offer a representative cross-section of art developments from 1945 to the present in the areas of painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, and video.  K08 :: Emancipation and Confrontation documents how a new generation of artists set out on new paths after 1945 and explores the development of art in the immediate present. In addition to painting and sculpture, photography, video, and installation art have grown in significance and will be presented accordingly. Many artists from Carinthia, such as Hans Bischoffshausen, Josef Dabernig, Günther Domenig, Ines Doujak, Johann Fruhmann, Bruno Gironcoli, Wolfgang Hollegha, Franco Kappl, Kurt Kocherscheidt, Kiki Kogelnik, Cornelius Kolig, Maria Lassnig, Meina Schellander, and Heimo Zobernig, all the way up to the younger generation including Gudrun Kampl, Roland Kollnitz, Eric Kressnig, and Katarina Schmidl, have left their mark on art history beyond Carinthia as well.

Curated by Silvie Aigner, this show will present over one hundred artists in eight Carinthian art institutions.

The exhibition project covers the following locations:
Klagenfurt Museum of Modern Art Carinthia; Art Association Carinthia, Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt; Napoleonstadel – Carinthia`s House of Architecture; the public space of the City of Klagenfurt
Bleiburg Werner Berg Museum
Saag by Velden Kelag Power Station Forstsee
Einöde by Villach Kunstwerk Krastal
Ossiach Ossiach Monastery
Nötsch im Gailtal Museum of the Nötsch Circle

Location Klagenfurt - With a survey of the development of art from 1945 to the present, the Museum of Modern Art Carinthia is the heart of this major exhibition. The turn to abstract painting is documented with works by Hans Bischoffshausen, Johann Fruhmann, Wolfgang Hollegha, Arnulf Rainer, Hans Staudacher, Gustav Troger, and others. In addition, the path from figuration to the abstract language of forms is traced with a number of graphic works. Examples of sculptures from Fritz Wotruba`s master class, such as works by Otto Eder, Anton Marcolin, and Hanak`s student Othmar Jaindl, demonstrate the rise of sculpture to an internationally acclaimed avant-garde. This leads into the presentation of the Carinthian artists like Hans Bischoffshausen, Kiki Kogelnik and Maria Lassnig that sought a confrontation with the international avant-garde after World War II and settled in Vienna, Paris, or New York.

Within the framework of the exhibition, the Art Association Carinthia in the Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt will present the young and the middle generation, whose work is closely linked with an intermedia strategy in between object, photography, and new media. Central to this are the works of Meina Schellander and Inge Vavra, who formulated a connection between spatial discourse, graphic art, photography, and object art at an early stage and are regarded as pioneers of this trend in Carinthia. Starting from their work, individual artists will be invited to conceive installations for the house. This includes recent positions such as those of Luisa Kasalicky, Anja Manfredi, and Katarina Schmidl, as well as artists from the middle generation like Ines Doujak, Roland Kollnitz, Hubert Lobnig, Nicole Six&Paul Petritsch, and Larissa Tomasetti.

In conjunction with K08, the Werner Berg Museum in Bleiburg, founded in 1968, shows selected works by Werner Berg, which exemplify his formally stringent conception of pictures. Starting from these works, the reception of the geometric style after 1945 will be outlined on the basis of works by Hans Bischoffshausen, Johann Fruhmann, and Kiki Kogelnik. The continuity of concrete trends, which has usually been neglected in documentations of Austrian art, is presented by K08 for the first time with a selection of contemporary artists from Carinthia from Marianne Bähr, Armin Ebner, Manuel Knapp, Edgar Knoop, Eric Kressnig, Ferdinand Penker, Zorka Weiss, and Gertrude Weiss-Richter to Heimo Zobernig.

The Kunstwerk Krastal in Einöde by Villach has been organizing symposiums in the quarry as an association since 1967. Based on its forty years of activity in this sculpture location, it will show large sculptures by international sculptors juxtaposed with works by artists from the association Kunstwerk Krastal. In the sculpture house itself, works by Herbert Golser, Meina Schellander, and others will be on display.

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