Art Cluster
Albertina
Albertina Albertinaplatz 1 1010 Vienna T +43 1 534 83 0 F +43 1 534 83 430 E info@albertina.at www.albertina.at Opening hours: Thu.–Tue. 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. Wed. 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
CONVERSATION
EXHIBITION
Artist talk with Sonja Gangl
“Matisse and the Fauves”
Thursday, 21 November 2013 6:30 p.m. Albertina, Hall of the Muses
20 September 2013–12 January 2014
In German
In 2013, the Albertina is dedicating the Austrian artist Sonja Gangl, born 1965 in Graz, her first solo museum exhibition. In her large-scale drawings, Gangl enlarges details and focuses on particular image sections. The new works on show at the Albertina feature human eyes, in pairs and one at a time. The eye’s ability to establish contact with the world makes it an instrument that can bridge distances. However, being a most vulnerable organ, it also needs to keep its distance from a menacing world. German photographer and author Rolf Sachsse, who holds a chair for Design History and Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts Saar, will talk to the artist about her works shown for the first time in the exhibition “Sonja Gangl”.
EXHIBITION
“Sonja Gangl” 1 November 2013–23 February 2014
In fall 2013, the Albertina is presenting a comprehensive exhibition with some 150 works by Henri Matisse and the fauvists, who are now regarded as the pioneers of Modernism. This is the first time that most of the works by the young artists, whom contemporary art critics referred to as “fauves” (wild animals), are on display in Vienna or Central Europe. Fauvism only existed for two years, but was the first avant-garde movement of the 20th century and thus elementary for the emergence of Modernism. Other fauvist artists beside Henri Matisse included André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Braque and Kees van Dongen. In 1905, the group caused a stir at the 3rd Paris Autumn Salon, where the walls were literally ablaze with the fauvists’ paintings. The audience was shocked at the screaming, radiant colors and the wild brush strokes, which appeared to have been casually thrown on the canvas. What mattered was the expression rather than the motif.
Sonja Gangl, CAPTURED ON PAPER_eyes (Emily), 2013
The exhibition demonstrates that Matisse and the fauvists not only strived for intensity and expression in their famous paintings, but also in their bronzes, ceramics, stone sculptures and furniture.
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