Kristian Fenzl is a visual person. And not just because he is the child of an Upper Austrian optician. Intensive has the painter who Kunstuni professor, the subject prescribed landscape in recent years and savored it. In Mediterranean to ice-blue colors. Up to the complete abstraction.
The latest group of Paraiso actually represents a decisive break in its development. Fenzl assigns his Landscapes now very concrete body landscapes. The Lustvolle remained.
Since its beginnings artistic spirits show by erotic fantasies revived. After prehistoric representations in the anthropological context of fertility cults, the nudity in ancient times usually limited to the mythological area. Only the Renaissance and their discovery of the human body demythologizing the erotic representation that explicitly culminates in the iconography of the Rococo in the 18th century.
In current trends, this development finds its increase. One must speak of a pornographication of Art, better from sexual overkill in society and art today. Right here is Kristian Fenzls to reflection.
Artistic methods
The choice of image templates for Paraiso follows no overriding principle. Kristian Fenzl enlarged images of women of our time, and transmits it as a black and white print on the canvas.
Digital image processing of artifacts and analog overpainting Fenzl scored blurring. He arranges the overpainted figures to the landscapes of past years, which are also painted. These di- and triptychs are coated with a monochrome veil. The multiple layers of white and pink colored billing ensures irritation and picturesque ambivalence.
White symbolizes the immaculate the veiled woman, works with pink colored veils are for the flesh tones, for the pleasure principle of the Rococo. But the paradisiacal body eluding. From anonymous Lustobjekt women will speak about precious gems that are hidden to the viewer. Kristian Fenzl so evokes the voyeuristic gaze, but he disarmed him along with more subtle manner.
His tools are varnishes. they are dissolved fine sprayed directly from the can, then compressed reinvested in strands or meticulous color carpets. Fenzl can flow into each color in rivulets, it is mixed with amorphous dabs. The free gesture is essential.
For reception
Kristian Fenzl is like other painters of his generation in the context of international development. The list of those who deal with nudity in the context of erotic delimitation or pornographication society is long. It ranges from the late protagonists of pop art Mel Ramos to grandmasters of shock Jeff Koons.
Arnulf Rainer also uses the cycle nude through the ages (2003) by overpainting historical female figures delightfully erotic. By contrast Fenzl cited in Paraiso no historical context. He is also not interested in psychologizing representation of mental states.
The new series of Kristian Fenzl now also refers more to the work of Gerhard Richter, which applies the method of painting over decades repeatedly. Judge photorealistic Abmalungen show - especially in marine environments - overt references to German Romanticism. But Fenzls interest is now no longer the landscape he painted over and provides the full body portraits of design competence Impetus out aside. The protagonists of Paraiso thus neither follow stories of history nor a topos. They act on us without context.
Core of Fenzlschen Oeuvres remains the projection of desires. In the search for the ideal landscape Debunking today's society has followed in their search for the ideal of eternal youth and beauty. Even painters and viewers can indulge in this ideal. And themselves caught here how guiltily in a bigoted society deals with sexual themes.
Dr. Bernhard Barta
Art historian, curator, cultural journalist and author. Several years for the Kunsthaus Wien and the Lentos Art Museum operates.
