| HANS STAUDACHER Prinzip Informel | |||||||||||||||
| 10 May - 24 June 2001 | |||||||||||||||
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Konfrontation, 1990 Öl auf Leinwand 200 x 170 cm View of the Exhibition |
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Hans Staudacher, born 1923 in St. Urban in Carinthia, has been counted among the most important artists of non-figurative painting in Austria for at least 40 years. His works may essentially be categorized as belonging to the lyrical informal, a type of painting defined by gesture and rich in dramatic tension. The retrospective presented by the Neue Galerie of Linz comprises about 80 paintings and works on paper, with an emphasis on works from the eighties and nineties. The works by this Carinthian artist are characterized equally by their graphical and painterly moments, and in their inexhaustible formal and coloristic richness in all the placements of accent, their tension and rhythmic reflections, they highlight the unusual open-mindedness and creative potential of their creator. Despite their spontaneity and liberalness that is often mistaken for mere arbitrariness, Staudacher's paintings and drawings are always the product of a conscious artistic process that is determined by an alert mind and emotions. Not the picture, but the picture as the result of an autonomous choice of form and the concomitant new signification is the artist's objective. The defining preconditions for this are to be found equally in Staudacher's strong connection with nature and the assumption of associations from modern everyday life, the rapidity of today, or the improvisational possibilities of jazz. The sign, the rapid painting gesture becomes the main criterion for many of his compositions. The improvisational interplay of lines, patches and colors is enriched by the inclusion of letters, snatches of conversation and sentence statements. What is written and what is painted merge together as equals. Peter Baum A 120-page catalogue will be published on the exhibition "Hans Staudacher - Prinzip Informel" by the Neue Galerie in cooperation with the Galerie Hilger, Vienna (ATS 298,-) | |||||||||||||||
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