Leander Schwazer: 30 Most Famous People of All Time

According to the definition of concept art, formulated in the 1960s by Sol LeWitt, all that is needed to generate an autonomous work of art is an idea. If the idea is sufficient as an algorithm or work production engine, the idea alone should already contain or generate the whole work for itself.

Leander Schwazer takes painting, in a neo-conceptual sense, like a black box, using Offset Printing Ink as they are used on a daily basis to print newspapers. The colors distributed abundantly over the canvases need months to dry, transforming themselves into fantastic mineral structures. It is not the picture, as in classical conceptual art, but the color that paints itself. In this case it is the color that blindly confirms itself from within; something begins to speak –something pre– or perhaps something post–human.

The apparent title of the work, 30 Most Famous People of All Time, recalls Andy Warhol's work for the New York expo in 1964 – the mural 'Thirteen Most Wanted Men' with silk-screen prints of mug shots. One of the famous people in Leander Schwazer's exhibition is the so-called mechanical Turk , the first chess robot from the nineteenth century, who was in reality operated by a human.

Leander Schwazer born 1982 in Vipiteno (I); 2005–08 Zurich University of the Arts (CH), Bachelor of Fine Arts; 2007–08 China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CN); 2012–14 California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (US), Master of Fine Arts; lives and works in Vipiteno and Los Angeles;

Solo shows (selection): 2015 Galleria Alessandro Casciaro, Bolzano; 2014 Bikini, Museion / Project Room, Bolzano; Zoo, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (US); 2013 Cross Spikes Club, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (US); 2012 The Rape of Europe, ar/ge Kunst, Bolzano; The Alphabet I got dry with (1989-2010), Kunstraum B, Kiel (DE); A Symbol of Freedom, Placentia Arte, Piacenza; 2011 Das Kapital, Alumix, Transart Festival, Bolzano; [Performance]; 2010 Characters, Goethe2, Bolzano; Aither, con Garret Nelson, Van Horbourg Art in Space, Basel (CH); 2007 Besitzen, Goldbarren Zürich (CH);