Maria Lassnig

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Maria Lassnig (2009)

Maria Lassnig , née Gregorz (born September 8, 1919 in Kappel am Krappfeld , Carinthia ; † May 6, 2014 in Vienna ) was an Austrian painter and media artist .

life and work

In 1919 Maria Lassnig was born out of wedlock as Maria Gregorz in a farmhouse in the municipality of Kappel am Krappfeld. She grew up under neglected circumstances with her grandmother until she was six. In 1922 her penniless mother Mathilde Gregorz married the baker Jakob Lassnig, and in 1925 the family moved to Klagenfurt . There she attended the Ursuline convent school, which she graduated with the Matura. Then she completed training as a primary school teacher. She received drawing lessons between the ages of 6 and 10. She was considered a special talent and was encouraged by her mother. Drawings from this period that have been preserved prove this. From 1940 to 1941 she worked as a primary school teacher in a one-class primary school in the Metnitztal . Above all, she drew with the children. She was to come back to this place again and again later, after adapting a school building in the area as a summer studio in 1985.

Work together with Switbert Lobisser, Klagenfurt 1943

In the winter semester 1940/1941 she began studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts with Wilhelm Dachauer . When Lassnig, looking for his own artistic path, painted more colorfully and expressively, differences arose with Dachauer. After his critical remark “You paint completely degenerate”, she continued her studies in Ferdinand Andri's class . In January 1945 she completed her studies with a diploma. During the Nazi era, Lassnig was regarded as an adapted, ambitious, apolitical student and a typical follower. She was supported by the academy and received sponsorship awards, including the Carinthia Gaustipendium three times in 1943 and 1944 and, after completing her studies, a state travel grant in February 1945, which was paid out due to a lack of travel opportunities.

Klostergasse, near Heiligengeist-Platz, where the studio was

After completing her studies in 1945, she returned to Klagenfurt and moved into a studio on Heiligengeist-Platz, where she received Klagenfurt's artistic avant-garde: Arnold Clementschitsch , Michael Guttenbrunner , Max Hölzer and Arnold Wande. In 1948 she had her first solo exhibition in Edith Kleinmayr's gallery on Alten Platz in Klagenfurt, where she showed "body awareness drawings" and small surreal figure compositions. In 1947 she met the painter Arnulf Rainer , who was 10 years her junior and who also had his first solo exhibition at Kleinmayr, and entered into a relationship with him. In 1951 she moved back to Vienna, to a studio at Bräuhausgasse 4. A scholarship in the same year took her to Paris , with Arnulf Rainer accompanying her. Another stay there in 1952 brought her in contact with André Breton , Benjamin Péret , Gisèle Lestrange and Paul Celan . She only returned to the Academy of Fine Arts in 1954 and completed her academic training in the Albert Paris Gütersloh class . Together with Oswald Oberhuber , Wolfgang Hollegha , Josef Mikl , Markus Prachensky and Arnulf Rainer, she belonged to the circle around Monsignore Otto Mauer , the Viennese cathedral preacher who was interested in art, sponsor and founder of the gallery next to St. Stephan . Another important contact was the writers of the “ Wiener Gruppe ” Friedrich Achleitner , HC Artmann , Gerhard Rühm and Oswald Wiener . Together with Arnulf Rainer, she was considered the founder of informal painting in Austria.

Between 1961 and 1968 she lived in Paris and painted her first body awareness watercolors as well as two meter high body awareness figurations, which were never exhibited. Her mother died in 1964, death appears again and again in her pictures. Depression and liver disease burdened her. Lassnig decided to emigrate.

Maria Lassnig (right) with Sabine Groschup , Vienna 2008

In 1968 she moved into a studio in the East Village , New York , where her work was rejected as “strange” and “morbid”. She attended a screen printing class in Brooklyn, which resulted in large-format silk screen prints , and in 1970 she took an animation course at the School of Visual Arts . She bought a 16mm film camera and made her first films. Her graphic and film work was shown in a major retrospective in the Albertina graphic collection in Vienna. A DAAD scholarship brought her to Berlin in 1978.

It was not until 1980 that she returned to Vienna from the USA at the instigation of the then Federal Minister Hertha Firnberg and was the first woman to take over a professorship for painting at the University of Applied Arts . One of the conditions that made her accept this professorship was the collaboration of the art theorist Heimo Kuchling . Her students there also included the future graphic artist Guido Hoffmann and Sabine Groschup . Together with Valie Export she represented Austria at the Biennale in Venice . In 1982 she founded Austria's only teaching studio for animation in her master class. The teaching studio for experimental animation film still exists today.

Grave of Maria Lassnig

Lassnig's works were exhibited at documenta 7 in 1982 and at documenta X in Kassel in 1997 . During this period, numerous solo exhibitions took place, for example in the Museum of the 20th Century in Vienna, the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf and the Kunsthalle Nürnberg , the Carinthian State Gallery, the Hundertmark Gallery in Cologne , the Onnasch Gallery in Berlin , the Lucerne Art Museum , from 1990s then also in Paris , New York , The Hague , Frankfurt am Main , Zurich , Munich and Rome .

On February 18, 2004, she received the Max Beckmann Prize of the City of Frankfurt am Main, endowed with 50,000 euros, for her “extraordinary contribution to contemporary painting” . The award, which is given every three years, recognizes outstanding achievements in painting , graphics , sculpture or architecture .

On the occasion of her 90th birthday, an extensive solo exhibition by the Austrian artist was shown in Munich in 2010, with a focus on the works of recent years.

Maria Lassnig rests in a grave of honor in Vienna's central cemetery .

Lassnig's house on Tschabuschniggstrasse

The artist owned a house on Adolf-Tschabuschnigg-Straße in Klagenfurt, which is empty today. It has been sold to a private owner and is expected to be demolished.

The Maria Lassnig studio in Klostergasse 1, however, has been restored. For almost 40 years it stood as a badly damaged demolition remnant like a memorial in the little alley after the building on Heiligengeistplatz to the south had been razed in favor of a department store. The Nicolini family acquired the building relic that was to be demolished. The original atelier has been restored over many years; the adjacent vacant lot had to be closed. The studio is now located inside this house. For Maria Lassnig's 100th birthday on September 8, 2019, the city of Klagenfurt put a memorial plaque on the facade of Klostergasse 1. The public could visit the studio.

painting

After surrealist beginnings, Lassnig was influential in the 1950s for the newly emerging Art Informel in Austria. Characteristic of her extensive work, however, are the images of body sensation , with which she has completely freed herself from stylistic constraints and models over the years. The subject of body - physicality - body awareness is dealt with by many artists today; Lassnig was one of the first to reflect on the female position in the art world and in society very early with her painting and, in particular, to drastically and openly portray the influence of the female body on the life plan and biography of an artist. She said of herself: "It is certain that I do not paint or draw the` `object '' body - I paint sensations from the body."

Her means are classical painting, a figuration without a simple realistic depiction - Lassnig paints the subject, not the object. So there are always self-portraits, enriched with surreal elements, which create a strange and very specific suspension between closeness and foreignness.

An example is the early still life with a red self-portrait from 1969. The self-portrait is reduced to a large red mouth and can stand for both food intake and eroticism - perhaps a critical reaction to the then current Pop Art . Over the years, her self-portraits became more and more drastic, she painted herself as a dumpling or as a calculating machine, such as the science fiction self-portrait , 1980, oil on canvas 76 × 64 cm. From the late 1990s onwards, self-portraits with an animal were increasingly added. Frog Queen , 2000, oil on canvas, 125 × 100 cm.

For the 2005/2006 season in the Vienna State Opera , she designed the giant large picture (176 m²) Breakfast with Ear as part of the “Iron Curtain” exhibition series conceived by museum in progress .

Body feeling colors

Since 1949 Lassnig painted self-portraits, which were supposed to reflect her body awareness, her physical feeling. The body colors are the means. The artist used colors intuitively to express physical feelings such as pain or abstract sensations. The idea was not to paint what she saw, but to visualize what her body felt.

Movie

  • Chairs (1971), 16 mm, color, sound, 4 minutes; Chairs move like people to music
  • Selfportrait (1971), 16 mm, color, sound, 5 minutes; Life Review in Animation, received the New York State Council Award in 1972
  • Couples (1972), 16 mm color, sound, 10 minutes; A seducer and a victim talk to each other on the phone and in bed: “You helped me, you made me strong - but you can't blame me for anything; whoever loves so blindly pays with death. "
  • Shapes (1972), 16 mm, color, clay, 10 minutes; human silhouettes move to music by Bach
  • Palmistry (1973), 16mm, color, clay, 10 minutes; A. a fat girl refuses to grow thin to please men; B. the first time, C. at the palm reader: a juxtaposition of terrible superstition and terrible science
  • Art Education (1976), 16 mm, color, sound, 16 minutes; feminist interpretation of famous paintings by u. a. Michelangelo, Vermeer
  • Maria Lassnig Cantata (1992), 35 mm, color, sound, 8 minutes; Idea, text, singing, drawing, animation Maria Lassnig, Production Hubert Sielecki : "It's art, yes, it makes me younger and younger, it first makes the mind hungry and then full!"

Own publications

  • No defense, manifesto for the exhibition “Unfigurative Painting”. Klagenfurt 1951.
  • Painting recipes. Catalog Galerie St. Stephan, Vienna 1960.
  • Opportunities for creative people. Protocols 68, Vienna 1968.
  • About the heads, about the line art, newer images, biography. With an introduction by Wolfgang Drechsler and texts by Peter Gorsen. Monograph on the exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art Vienna. Ritter, Klagenfurt 1985.
  • With your head through the wall: new pictures. With texts by Hildegund Amanshauser ( Kunstmuseum Luzern , editor and publisher: Martin Kunz). Ritter, Klagenfurt 1989, ISBN 3-267-00080-7 .
  • The pen is the sister of the brush: Diaries 1943 to 1997. Ed. By Ulrich Obrist. DuMont, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-7701-5295-6 .
  • Country people. Ritter, Klagenfurt 2004, ISBN 3-85415-355-4 .
  • Maria Lassnig, letters to Hans Ulrich Obrist . Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 2020, ISBN 978-3-96098-817-5 (posthumous publication).

Awards, honors, prizes

Austrian Decoration for Science and Art

Exhibitions

  • 1985 - Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna
  • 1987 - Austrian contemporary artists: works on paper; Kermer Collection, Stuttgart , Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
  • 2009 - The presence of the line , Pinakothek der Moderne , Munich
  • 2009 - In the mirror of possibilities, watercolors and drawings from 1947 to today , Museum Ludwig , Cologne
  • 2009 - Maria Lassnig. The ninth decade , MUMOK , Vienna
  • 2010 - Maria Lassnig. Art makes me younger and younger , art construction of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus , Munich; Catalog from Distance Verlag
  • 2012/2013 - Maria Lassnig. The place of the pictures , Neue Galerie Graz , Graz
  • 2013 - Maria Lassnig. The place of the pictures , in the hall for current art of the Deichtorhallen , Hamburg
  • 2014 - Maria Lassnig. With a special focus on the artist's self-portraits, MoMA PS1 , New Yorken. City
  • 2016 - Maria Lassnig (1919-2014). The donation to the Neue Galerie Graz , Neue Galerie Graz, Graz.
  • 2017 - Maria Lassnig . Folkwang Museum , Essen .
  • 2017 - Maria Lassnig. Dialogues . Albertina (Vienna) (also shown at the Kunstmuseum Basel in 2018).
  • 2018 - Maria Lassnig. Relationships . Art Museum St. Gallen.
  • 2019 - Body Check. Martin Kippenberger - Maria Lassnig . Art building of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus , Munich; Catalog: Verlag snoeck
  • 2020 - Body.Feel - Maria Lassnig from the Klewan Collection . Museums Böttcherstraße , Bremen

Foundation, endowment

The Maria Lassnig Foundation , founded in 2015, is dedicated to the artist's extensive oeuvre and estate . The Maria Lassnig Prize is accompanied by a solo exhibition by the winner, which is organized by an institution that cooperates with the Maria Lassnig Foundation. A jury consisting of representatives of the foundation and the participating institution awards the award every two years.

The first prize winner in 2017 was the British artist Cathy Wilkes , the exhibition of her work took place from October 22, 2017 to March 11, 2018 at MoMA PS1 .

The award, endowed with 50,000 euros, will be presented for the second time in 2019, this time together with the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau Munich. The award winner is the Indian artist Sheela Gowda , who uses country-specific materials in addition to traditional references to consciously criticize socio-political circumstances.

literature

Web links

Commons : Maria Lassnig  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hindrance Amanshauer u. a .: '' Maria Lassnig: With her head through the wall: new pictures '', Ritter, Klagenfurt, 1989 ISBN 978-3-85415-068-8 , p. 99
  2. ↑ Verena Pawlowsky: The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under National Socialism: Teachers, students and administrative staff , Böhlau, Vienna 2015 (partly accessible via Google Books)
  3. ^ Culture: Maria Lassnig Atelier opens. In: kaernten.orf.at. September 6, 2019, accessed October 26, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Oswald Oberhuber . Oswald Oberhuber and his work in the gallery next St. Stephan at this time; Text of the Dorotheum homepage.
  5. ↑ a b c Heidemarie Seblatnig: Simply face the dangers - artists in conversation . Vienna 1988, p. 299
  6. ↑ Lassnig, Maria . Berlin artist program of the DAAD. Catalog for their exhibition at Haus am Lützowplatz from October 20 to November 19, 1978; DAAD, Berlin 1978.
  7. ↑ Gabriele Schor (Ed.): Feminist Avantgarde. 1970s art. Works from the Verbund collection, Vienna . Extended edition. Prestel, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-7913-5627-3 , p. 487
  8. ↑ art-in.de , accessed on March 6, 2011
  9. ↑ https://klagenfurt.gruene.at/bleibt-uns-nichts-von-maria-lassnig/
  10. ↑ https://klagenfurt.gruene.at/maria-lassnig-museum-waere-magnet-fuer-klagenfurt/
  11. ^ Culture: Maria Lassnig Atelier opens. In: kaernten.orf.at. September 6, 2019, accessed October 26, 2019 .
  12. ↑ haz.de: Beyond the vanity
  13. ↑ Helmuth Frierdel, Matthias Mühling, Jennifer Higgie; Maria Lassnig catalog for the 2010 exhibition in Lenbachhaus, Distance Verlin, 2010
  14. ↑ Holger Liebs: In conversation: Maria Lassnig - The pressure that propagates in the body . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 17, 2010; Retrieved August 18, 2014.
  15. ↑ Peter Gorsen: The art of good and bad feelings. Excursion to a painter's workshop . In: Wolfgang Drechsler (Ed.): Maria Lassnig . Klagenfurt / Vienna 1985, exhibition catalog, p. 138
  16. ↑ Peter Weibel: The painter speaks as a body - on Maria Lassnig's body language . In: Wolfgang Drechsler (Ed.): Maria Lassnig . Klagenfurt / Vienna 1985, exhibition catalog, p. 126/127
  17. ↑ orf.at: Lassnig and Mayröcker Academy members (accessed on September 19, 2015)
  18. ↑ Maria Lassnig and Marisa Merz Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement of the 55th International Art Exhibition ( Memento from January 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Awarded in 1999, accepted in 2013: Maria Lassnig accepts an honorary doctorate .
  20. ^ Vienna names the street after Maria Lassnig , orf.at, April 8, 2016, accessed April 8, 2016.
  21. ↑ https://artinwords.de/maria-lassnig-werke-leben/
  22. ^ Austrian contemporary artists: works on paper; Kermer Collection, Stuttgart . Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, May 19 to June 13, 1987. [Foreword: Madalena Hörmann; Catalog editing: Wolfgang Kermer ] Innsbruck: Galerie im Taxispalais, 1987, pp. 23–24, m. Fig.
  23. ^ Announcement on the exhibition , accessed on August 5, 2014
  24. ↑ https://www.lenbachhaus.de/ausstellungen/body-check/?L=0
  25. ↑ marialassnig.org
  26. ^ MoMA: Cathy Wilkes. Retrieved October 14, 2019 .
  27. ^ Salzburger Nachrichten: Maria Lassnig Prize goes to Indian artist Sheela Gowda. Retrieved March 13, 2019 .
  28. ↑ Lenbachhaus - SHEELA GOWDA ARTIST TALK. Retrieved April 8, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Lassnig, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Kappel am Krappfeld , Carinthia, Austria
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 2014
Place of death Vienna , Austria