HERBERT BRANDL Schönes Leben

HERBERT BRANDL
Schönes Leben
October 29 – December 23, 2016

Herbert Brandl is presenting a series of bronze sculptures, new mountain and crystal paintings, and a new series of monotypes in his upcoming exhibition “Schönes Leben” (Beautiful Life), his eighth solo show in the Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder.

„Brandl’s art consists not only of painting as painting—be this in the form of abstractions or landscapes—there are also unusual elements to be found. These curious renegades, black sheep, or thorns in the side of panel painting take the form of lovely little flowers, a megalomaniac mushroom mutation, aquariums, domesticated wild cats, or bloodthirsty packs of hyenas tearing into their prey. About five years ago, one of these creatures escaped from the canvas, and since then the artist has been working on the sculptural permutations of this creature in bronze. The starting point for this project was a big cat from Indonesia made of wood that Brandl used for many years to scrape off the left-over paint from his pictures. At the end of the 1980s, the painter had removed all impasto from his paintings, making the surface smooth and opening it up to light and space. The sediment of the oil paint remained on the animal, which became a kind of painting in its own right. The artist then decided to take this painterly ready-made and make many mutations of it before casting it in bronze, also elongating its limbs and incisors. Out of the sleek and crouching cat, grotesque and fantastic fighting clones were born that looked as if they come straight out of the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf. Are these the inhabitants of Brandl’s scorched post-apocalyptic landscape pictures, or are they the wild and ancient gatekeepers of the picturesque Yangtze River?“ (Florian Steininger)

After his series of Yangtze River and hyena paintings, Herbert Brandl has returned to mountains, letting the breathtaking ruggedness of Grossglockner and Aconcagua set a new tone. Stunning spaces of light and color (primarily blue and white) emerge, while nature presents itself in its most richly associative form. The blurred line between abstraction and representation – the tension created by Brandl’s “unintentional” painting in each picture – has been referred to by Ulrich Loock as the “representation of the non-representability of landscape.” Above all, Herbert Brandl’s work on mountains is work on painting: how to approach the atmosphere and conditions, paint as matter, painterly gesture, and finally the inscription of physical movement into the picture. Brandl has integrated Chinese ink painting into his range of painterly techniques, placing airy brush strokes on patches of white untreated canvas, lending the rugged and powerful mountain motifs an astonishing lightness. He has also created a new series of pictures of mountain crystals, whose jagged structures resembling crumbling peaks or tall buildings toppling over are rendered in an apocalyptical dark blue accentuated with light lines and cross-hatching. Monotypes revolving around the same theme make the exhibition complete.

Herbert Brandl, born in 1959 in Graz, lives in Vienna. Herbert Brandl took part in the São Paulo Biennale in 1989 and the Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992. In 2007, he represented Austria at the Venice Biennale.
Selected solo exhibtions: Kunsthalle Bern; Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent; Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld; Secession, Vienna; Kunsthalle Basel; Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Albertina, Vienna; Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna; Osthaus Museum Hagen; Haus der Kunst St. Josef, Solothurn
Selected museum collections: Albertina, Vienna, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, Museu Serralves, Porto, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Reina Sofia, Madrid, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz.

In the LOGIN: MIAO YING 苗颖 Chinternet How: A Love Story 亲特网万事指南：一个爱情故事
Information on the backside –>

LOGIN: MIAO YING 苗颖 Chinternet How: A Love Story 亲特网万事指南：一个爱情故事

With her project „Chinternet Plus“, Chinese internet artist Miao Ying uses irony to follow the “Chinternet,” the Chinese Internet and its Great Firewall. Miao Ying’s “Chinternet Plus” is an allusion to “Internet Plus,” a strategy that was proposed by China’s Premier of the State Council, Li Keqiang, in 2015. Its goal is to apply cloud computing and big data to traditional industries with an aim of rebooting them and was introduced shortly after China’s economy began to falter.

China's Great Firewall filters certain foreign websites and webpages, while the government and commercial censors block and delete content. Domestic platforms soak up traffic that would normally go to globally popular sites, if they were not blocked or otherwise rendered difficult to use. Thus, Weibo replaces Twitter, Baidu takes the place of Google, YouKu stands in for YouTube, and so on. Chinese internet users (netizens) also joke that what they are accessing is not the internet, but the Great Chinese LAN (the local area network). The Great Firewall and censorship have led to the development of unique online subcultures and codes for working around authorities. A wave of young artists has also drawn inspiration from this political situation and the creative subversions it has fostered. “The limit of the Chinese internet is what sets it free,” says Miao Ying.

Miao’s project “Chinternet Plus” is what she describes as the official unveiling of a “counterfeit ideology,” a parodic take on the original strategy of “Internet Plus”. The work is essentially a guide for how to brand an insubstantial idea, suggesting that, in the case of political branding in particular, media can easily stand in for the message. Her works involve a sense of humor and intelligence, and they inhabit multiple forms (the browser, apps, print, and installation). They are also all meticulously cataloged on her website titled “the dead pixel of my eye”, and focus on the online culture behind the so-called Great Firewall, specifically its strange and original GIFs and viral media.

“Chinternet How: A Love Story” is a pair of advertising stands lighted from above, composed of illustrations, advertising slogans, and the logo. It acts as an introduction to the brand new ideology “Chinternet How,” which specializes in relationships with the ideology. The advertisement work has a “Wiki-how” in the style of a how to guide and amateur illustrations, and it demonstrates situations you might face when accessing the Chinternet, such as: “How to get rid of a Stockholm Syndrome” relationship that you accidentally developed when using the Chinternet.

Miao Ying, born in 1985 in Shanghai, resides on the internet, the Chinese internet (the Great Firewall) and her smartphone. She received her BFA from the China Academy of Fine Art’s New Media Arts Department, and her MFA from the School of Art and Design at NYSCC at Alfred University, with a focus in Electronic Integrated Arts. In 2015, she represented China at the Venice Biennale (Chinese Pavilion). Her work was featured for the first time at Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 by Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder.