KLAUS-MARTIN-TREDER | #dash

KLAUS-MARTIN-TREDER | #dash
9/06/2022 — 2/07/2022
Even though our eyes first catch on the objects affixed to the foreground, it makes sense to read the pictures of the series Colour Garden from the ground up. The canvas is covered with a thick, viscous layer of paint held to a strong-hued basic monotone that envelopes it hermetically. Out of this painted paste a sculptural body emerges that makes color present as an almost physical material for us to experience.
Everything in this “doughy” colorful mass seems to literally founder and perish. It does not matter what kind of narrative or form might have existed at the origin of this picture – which we cannot see but only speculate on or guess at: Once an object changes from a solid to a liquid physical state, a picture starts to manifest that records the transition from life to death. “Death as a pointed moment on the two-dimensional plane” possesses a metaphorical quality informed by brutal finality. From early pictorial stories to comics and anime, all the way to film – when anti-heroes undergo final metamorphoses they often end up with all of their anatomical form dissolving.
And yet, this shapeless mass is subject to reanimation. On the surface of the vibrantly colored paint, objects take shape that have been applied to and draped over it in a secondary and autonomous process. This completes the transformation of the picture from a two- into a three-dimensional object, whose configurations would not exist were it not for the most precise calculations. By constantly adding and subtracting component objects, the action returns to painting. What’s more, the artist applies paint to some of the objects, such as the boxes that are plastered with paint or the sponges that were soaked in and suffused with paint. (...) (Sonja Klee)

Margaretenstraße 5, 1040 Wien
KOENIG2 by_robbygreif
Christine König Galerie was founded in 1989 in Vienna. The gallery represents a variety of internationally recognized artists and works simultaneously with a decidedly younger generation of upcoming artists. The gallery’s program and its selection of the artists reflects the central concerns of Christine König: Politics and activism, feminism, literature, as well as post-conceptual approaches.
In the last decades art has become a dominant field of action and discourse. Visual arts can help develop an understanding for socio-political and cultural processes of change. In a highly stimulating and productive climate, galleries have assumed the role of intermediaries, making a preliminary selection and using their intellectual resources in a responsible way to back and promote certain positions and artists vis-à-vis collectors.
KOENIG2 by_robbygreif is a sealed exhibition room visible in its entirety from the exterior. In its focus on young artists the space acts as a counterpoint to the ongoing exhibition program at the main gallery. The artists usually create site-specific installations for the almost square space which is accessible by appointment only.