“I always want to confront myself only with what I see, with my point of view, I can never say exactly what I convey with my paintings. I can only climb up as though on a rock face (…) where you can find cracks, water, stones or refractions of light”.
In the exhibited works, well representative of Brandl’s latest production, the atmospheric qualities of his very gestural and instinctive painting become, for the artist, dense and material touches, and the climb up the mountain takes on weight, assuming a concrete form. The peaks become ever thinner to the point of becoming contours and, showing an affinity with oriental prints, the act of painting seems to become an integral part of a spiritual practice: a contemplation of nature and its power.
As Focillon wrote: “Visionary heroism lies in fixing things with all their breaks, deformations, exceptions (...). In this transformational-transfigurational operation of the world into work of art, the obsession of visionaries turns out to be creative: the sensible world is the starting point and also the point of arrival, [the artist] needs to enter; it is not enough, but it is indispensable; he transfigures it, but he also respects it.”
In the works exhibited, the landscape is expressed in all its monumentality and solitude: sometimes the open spaces are inhabited by mysterious creatures – hyenas, bears – strong archaic images that are proud and aggressive, masters of places without men.
On display in the gallery there are also three large abstract paintings, naturalistic fragments collected by the artist and presented here as powerful and vibrant enlargements, almost as though their were macro photographs.
The viewer is therefore immersed into a landscape that is not just a landscape, between images perennially suspended between figuration and abstraction. Brandl’s paintings are thus not only a source of reflection on the essence of mountain, to be lived as both an aesthetic and physical experience, but also a moment of concentration, a questioning that opens a perception of art, an invitation to look at the canvas “as though it were a mirror, rather than a window” (Jan Hoet).
Herbert Brandl (Graz, Austria - 1959)
He lives and works in Vienna. Since 2004, he has been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. A representative of his country at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, he has held numerous personal exhibitions, including those at: Neue Galerie at the State Museum, Joanneum, Graz (1984); Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (1990); Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (1999); Expo, Austrian Pavillon, Aichi, Japan (2005); 52nd Venice Biennale, Austrian Pavillon (2007); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2009); “Berge und Landschaften“, Albertina, Vienna (2010); Bank Austria Kustforum, Vienna (2012); “Hyänenpause”, Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf (2017).
Among his group shows, there are: Biennale de Paris, Paris (1985); Documenta IX, Kassel (1992); “Der Zerbrochene Spiegel”, Kunsthalle Vienna/Deichtorhallen (1993); “Painting on the Move“, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2002); “Pintura”, Museu Serralves, Porto (2004); “Idylle, Traum und Trugschluss”, Collection Falckenberg, Hamburg (2006); “Europe, the future of History“, Kunsthaus, Zurich (2015).

Opening: 31.10.2017, 6 p.m

mpefm ITALY art press release