Klaus Albrecht Schröder – författare

“I am not aiming to provoke. For me, art is a possibility to defend myself, to retaliate.” Gottfried Helnwein’s (b. 1948) paintings of children are both touching and disturbing. The hyperrealistic character of his images serves to intensify this effect still further. The vulnerable and defenseless child serves as the central motif in the artist’s examination of the themes of pain, injury and violence. The catalogue provides an overview of his creative work during the past twenty years. The child in Helnwein’s works embodies and serves as proxy for psycho logical and societal fears. The artist also uses his images to denounce Nazism or to address the Holocaust as well as the taboo subject of abuse. Helnwein is considered a provocateur to this day. He still succeeds in shaking up people with his works, which are produced from photographic references and which captivate us through their technical perfection.

Before the rise of Pop Art proper, Alex Katz developed an iconic style of figurative painting in the early 1960s— influenced by film, television, and billboard advertising. Seemingly detached and incredibly stylish, he created portraits of the New York scene as well as idyllic landscapes. Printmaking plays an equally central role in Katz’s work. He uses lithographs, etchings, silkscreens, woodcuts and linocuts to reproduce, reflect and further reduce his bold aesthetic, while retaining the radiant color characteristic for his paintings. Since the first edition in 2011, Katz has almost doubled his output of prints—this timely new edition includes his complete prints, cutout editions, artists’ books, and also lists his works of applied art like book illustrations and public art projects. New essays and interviews with the artist give profound insights into the work of one of the foremost American artists of the present.

The wall was his passion. If we look at urban walls with the eyes of Burhan Dogancay, a completely different world opens up: half - ripped posters on rough brickwork, covered in graffiti, scribblings, messages, signs, stickers. From this rich stock of struct ures, signs and symbols the artist created his wall fragments, his “Urban Walls”. Dogancay (1929 – 2013) was born in Istanbul and settled in New York in 1964, where he moved within the art scene around Robert Rauschenberg und Jasper Johns. His subject is the visual perception of texture, place and memory, which he researches in serial wor ks. For his “Urban Walls” he records house walls and façades all over the world in a variety of media, using a wide range of materials and techniques such as photography, collage and painting. His works are archives of past decades which capture the spirit of the times. From the 1970s and 1980s he progresses from these works to develop his “Ribbons” – calligraphic paintings of poetic charm.

Hermann Nitsch produced his first “poured” paintings around 1960. In this form of action painting, the artist is primarily concerned with the substance of the paint, which he investigates from one Painting Action to the next. This catalog illustrates the development of his painterly works from the early 1960s to the present day. The main focus of the content lies in the characteristics of the various work cycles. In addition to the first “splatter” paintings it shows floor “splatter” paintings from the Red Cycle (1995), works from the Six-Day Play (1989) or the yellow Resurrection Cycle (2002). While one colour dominates in the monochrome works, in others a real explosion of colours takes place. The paint is splattered or sprayed; it may be applied in liquid form or impasto. The artist may use a paintbrush or smear the paint with his hands. The focal point is the exploration of the state of the paint, which varies between liquid and solid.

The Italian-American artist Francesco Clemente (b. 1952) is one of the main representatives of the postmodern Transavantgarde and Arte Cifra, the Italian version of Neo-Expressionism. Among his extensive oeuvre, the publication focuses on Clemente’s major works series.Clemente’s life spent in Europe, India, and New York has lent a remarkably multifaceted quality to both his art and his character. Indian culture and philosophy as well as the human body are recurring themes rendered in his figurative, Neo-Expressionist style. This volume guides through Clemente’s pastels, watercolors, gouaches, and printed graphics, including such major series as The Departure of the Argonaut, the From the Terreiro pastels, the Amalfi watercolors, and The Tarots, as well as his self-portraits, which have a quality all their own.

The Jablonka Collection is regarded as one of the highest-profile repositories of American and German art of the 1980s. In this catalogue the art dealer, gallerist and curator Rafael Jablonka (*1951) provides for the first time an insight into his wide-ranging collection, which is dedicated primarily to artists of his own generation.Rafael Jablonka has collected art for decades according to the basic principle of assembling multiple works from the different creative phases of artists. With some 120 works –paintings, works on paper, sculpture and installations –the catalogue introduces the oeuvres in question and shows a representative cross-section of the extensive Jablonka Collection, which was presented to the Albertina on permanent loan in 2019.

On the occasion of his 85th birthday the famous international German artist Georg Baselitz (*1938) has donated a collection of works on paper to both the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Morgan Library in New York. The publication combines the 100 sheets to create a representative retrospective, providing by virtue of its concentration an important contribution to the understanding of his entire oeuvre.The two extensive sets of drawings and watercolours date from different creative phases from the early 1960s to the present day. Through this direct medium the works provide an intimate insight into the artist’s creative process across the past five decades. An interview with Georg Baselitz conducted to mark this publication provides information about the significance of the works on paper in the genesis of his works and within his oeuvre.

Katharina Grosse (b. 1961) has created walkable artworks in three historical spaces within the Albertina in Vienna. The shimmering colour fields extends across the walls, ceiling and floor, crossing spatial and conceptual boundaries. Their power, intensity and sheer size is overwhelming. The catalogue documents the three-dimensional image world with detailed photos of the installations and pictures from the studio. Expansion and permanent boundary-crossing, freedom and autonomy form the basis of Grosse’s oeuvre. Her creative work is experimental and unpredictable, like untamed thoughts. Numerous photos from the artist’s personal archive provide an insight into her working methods and sources of inspiration, as well as the processes by which she develops her ideas.

With his Fat Cars and Tiny Houses, his sculptures of cucumbers, bread rolls, and sausages, Erwin Wurm (*1954) shines a critical spotlight on consumer society’s manipulative mechanisms and their effects. On the occasion of Wurm’s 70th birthday this extensive catalog documents all of the important stations of Erwin Wurm’s artistic career to date.Wurm uses shifted proportions and new angles on objects of everyday life to gain new perspectives and insights into our world and our lives. Alongside with his main works this presentation also aims to introduce the public to less well-known but equally significant works and work groups. The resulting selection will form a dense network of artistic statements comprising sculptures, drawings, working instructions and documentation, videos, objects, photographs, and paintings.

Robert Longo’s work captures moments of tension in nature, politics and history at their emotional climax. Presented at a monumental scale, the size and virtuoso technique of his photorealistic charcoal drawings enhance his powerful imagery. Based on photographs and found images, Longo’s drawings tap into cultural and collective memories. In the translation from the intimate drawing process to the massive scale of his final works, his motifs become a powerful presence. Political events and social observations influence his choice of motifs, which he isolates and reduces to heighten their visual impact. Using the stylistic devices of magnification and chiaroscuro, his work can seem equally real and unreal. He emphasises the spatial depth and plasticity of his subjects, using the deep blackness of charcoal on paper to absorb all light. This book presents ninety full- colour images to explore the work of this groundbreaking contemporary artist.