Zetter ▪ Projects At The Albertina: Prantl And Bischoffshausen With Avant-Garde Focus
Discover the new exhibition space Zetter ▪ Projects at the Albertina from April 15th till May 18th 2024: Immerse yourself in the world of Karl Prantl and Hans Bischoffshausen, two masters of the Austrian post-war avant-garde, and experience their fascinating artistic fusion.
Gallery at the Albertina ▪ Zetter opens new exhibition space Zetter ▪ Projects with a remarkable presentation of works by the two exceptional artists Karl Prantl and Hans Bischoffshausen
In 2023, the Galerie bei der Albertina ▪ Zetter, established at Lobkowitzplatz 1 in Vienna and run by Katharina Zetter-Karner since 2003, celebrated its 50th anniversary. This year, the establishment of a second shop at the same prominent address marks another important milestone in the history of the Galerie bei der Albertina ▪ Zetter. Together with the new Zetter ▪ Projects presentation space, designed as a white cube, there is now almost 500 square metres of potential exhibition space available for Austrian art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
KARL PRANTL and HANS BISCHOFFSHAUSEN - Art lies in the silence
With the opening exhibition of Zetter ▪ Projects, "KARL PRANTL und HANS BISCHOFFSHAUSEN - Die Kunst liegt in der Stille", gallery owner Katharina Zetter-Karner is already focussing public attention on two outstanding protagonists of the Austrian post-war avant-garde: KARL PRANTL and HANS BISCHOFFSHAUSEN.
Karl Prantl, the declared stone sculptor, and Hans Bischoffshausen, the painter who explores the boundaries of the genre, enter into a fruitful artistic dialogue with each other in this exhibition project realised by the Galerie bei der Albertina ▪ Zetter together with galerie artziwna. What superficially unites the visual works of these two unconventional artistic personalities is the (seemingly) pure aesthetic of their oeuvre. The current exhibition succeeds in visualising artistic parameters such as material-relatedness, reduction, structure and monochrome, which were indispensable for Karl Prantl and Hans Bischoffshausen. Biographically, 1959 marked a decisive turning point in both artists' lives: in 1959, Hans Bischoffshausen went to Paris, then the world capital of art, while Karl Prantl initiated the first of several trend-setting international sculpture symposia in the local quarry in St. Margarethen in Burgenland. For Karl Prantl and Hans Bischoffshausen, who were born in 1967
About Karl Prantl
Karl Prantl, born in 1923 in Pöttsching in Burgenland, initially studied painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (1946-1952) before turning to sculpture. He created his first sculptures in the winter of 1950/51. Prantl, who represented Austria at the 1986 Venice Biennale and was honoured with the Grand Austrian State Prize in 2008, died in 2010 in his birthplace.
Hans Bischoffshausen: A rebel of the canvas and sculptor of boundaries
Bischoffshausen's monochrome structural reliefs of the 1960s, clear, reduced reflections of his intensive exploration of time and space, established his international fame as a European avant-garde artist. From 1960 onwards, he created around 200 relief paintings, predominantly white in white, wavy, soft, vibrating "energy fields", with which he explored the limits of visibility: "I push the asceticism of white to the end." In 1971, Bischoffshausen turned away from the achromatic colour white for the time being, creating relief paintings in gold and red. Hans Bischoffshausen oscillated in the grey area between picture and sculpture with his material pictures made of paper, cell cement, sand, sheet metal, plaster, ash or asphalt, his crosses made of plywood, sometimes perforated and scorched. By sculpturally expanding the pictorial surface, he succeeded in dissolving the separation of space and image. Throughout his artistic life, Bischoffshausen was also preoccupied with conceptual considerations of rhythm, form, signs, language and writing.
About Hans Bischoffshausen
The uncomfortable, great outsider of the Austrian art scene, the Carinthian painter Hans Bischoffshausen, was born in Feld am See in 1927. He studied architecture in Graz for five semesters before taking what he later described as his "plunge into painting" via the diversions of art in architecture. In 1958, Bischoffshausen exhibited at Otto Mauer's Galerie St. Stephan in Vienna, travelled to Italy, intensified his contacts with Lucio Fontana and finally moved to Paris with his family in 1959. Here, Bernard Aubertin became an important companion. Hans Bischoffshausen took part in the exhibitions of the ZERO avant-garde, returned to Austria in 1971 and died in Villach in 1987.
Photos: PR
