| OTHMAR
ZECHYR Work Retrospective | |||||||||||||||
| 12 June - 18 August 2001 | |||||||||||||||
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Othmar Zechyr, 1989 photo: Anton S. Kehrer, Linz View of the Exhibition |
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| The exhibition at the Neue Galerie
shows a retrospective of the Linz artist Othmar Zechyr, who died in 1996.
From 1965 on, he was uncompromisingly dedicated to drawings and print
graphics. The self-taught drawer from Linz was already under observation by Ernst Fuchs at Naschmarkt in Vienna in 1964. He invited him shortly thereafter to a small exhibition in his equally small gallery in Millöckergasse, which functioned at that time as a chamber music private study for the "Fantastic Realists" next to the Theater an der Wien. As an autodidact coming in from the outside, Zechyr was able to tie into this fertile, although materially difficult era of upheaval and a pluralist expansion of the Austrian art scene. One of Zechyr's first major solo exhibitions, accompanied by a small catalogue, took place in 1968 at the Galerie auf der Stubenbastei in Vienna, organized by Peter Baum in his position as exhibition curator at that time. This was the first time that the monumental machine-like works and exploramas, but also the unmistakably organically layered mountains and comparable dynamic formations were to be seen, which later became typical for Zechyr. Even at that time, his early works, influenced by classical expressionism, were succeeded by thoroughly independent sketches and drawings in various formats. These were conspicuous in their intensity and peculiar originality, their flights of fancy, surprising selections of form and a clear affinity to utopian architectures, occasionally suggestive of Piranesi-like visions. Zechyr's allegories showed a world in uproar. Technology and progress became unstable and were in danger of being overtaken by nature. Alongside this, however, was a clear profession of lyricism, an affectionate turn to nature with all of its life-giving and insightful characteristics. In his drawing works, as in his personal life in many phases that he could only conditionally choose, Zechyr oscillated between order and chaos, between careful considerations marked by background insights and art history and a sympathy for anarchism and existentialism as embodied by Artaud and Passolini in their work. Zechyr's artistic world view, which defines reality and vision as a unity, is a highlight as a grand, unmistakable sketch of Austrian art in the last third of the 20th century. The work retrospective is a cooperation with the Museum of the History of Art, Vienna (Palais Harrach) Catalogue: Othmar Zechyr, Drawings 1966 - 1996, ed. Peter Baum, Gernot Heiss, Wilfried Seipel and Jutta Skokan, Vienna 2001, ATS 380,- / € 27,60 |
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