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Heimo Zobernig, Untitled, 2017

Acrylic on canvas, collagiert, 200 x 200 x 4 cm

Collection Lentos Art Museum Linz, Inv. Nr. 1709


In 2018, Heimo Zobernig donated to the Lentos two paintings and a video, including this work from the Gitterbilder [Grid Paintings]” series from 2017.
The first studies in which he probed the possibilities and limits of abstraction date from the mid-1980s. He developed a repertoire of motifs such as stripes and patches, which he kept revisiting in the following decades in countless variations. 
This picture creates the impression of a precise geometrical structure having been superimposed on a painting that has been executed with an expressive gesture. This conveys spatial depth, and one is almost led to believe that the grid serves to block off the free space, that the colours penetrate the lines and dilute the geometrical pattern in some places. This is followed by the realisation that Zobernig has resorted to the use of plain duct tape, which has partly stayed in place, while elsewhere it has been covered with paint or torn off. In other places the canvas shimmers through. A game of some sort? A tug of war between chaos and order, line and plane, formal stringency and abstract improvisation? 
Heimo Zobernig was born in Carinthia in 1958 and lives in Vienna. From the word go the artist refused to commit to any one genre. He works as a painter and sculptor, builds stage sets, makes videos, and designs exhibitions. He is interested in areas that are only accepted as art at a pinch. He himself defines art as the sum total of non-art plus projection”.

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