The Donnaregina Foundation for contemporary arts is pleased to announce the presentation of the exhibition Paradox Transformations by Rudolf Polanszky (Vienna, 1951), the first solo exhibition devoted to the Austrian artist in Italy, curated by Francesco Stocchi and created within PROJECT XXI (ed. 2015), in collaboration with the Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples.
Paradox Transformations will be hosted, from December 15, 2015, to February 20, 2016, at the premises of the Fondazione Mondragone in Naples, Istituto di Alta Cultura e Organismo di Formazione e di Orientamento della Regione Campania, Museo del Tessile e dell’Abbigliamento “Elena Aldobrandini”.
The exhibition presents some twenty works, produced between 1990s and 2015, both on canvas and sculptures, which take shape in the physical act of creation, exploring the relations between abstraction and the space of human action. Through his interest in the spatial experiments of the sixties and as a witness of the achievements of Viennese Actionism in its most gestural and immediate forms, Polanszky’s work embodies an intimate and even deliberately cryptic language, giving his gestures a dissociative shape and time, starting from the use of scavenged materials. The artist’s approach is accomplished in an attempt to analyze the fundamentals of creative language: space, light, color, rhythm. His paintings and sculptural works take shape in the physical act of production, tackling the relationship between abstraction and human space. Giving space to practice as a necessary, genuine cognitive expression, not knowing generates doing, an attempt to try to know. These sculptures are made out of a range of recurrent elements such as steel, wood, Plexiglas, romanticism, feathers, foam, precariousness, colors, reflections, memory. Brought together, they trace the shape of the void, express an idiosyncrasy towards gravity. The same tension is found in unilinear paintings/bas reliefs, which exalt the properties of materials. The work and the artist’s intentions evolve together with his conceptual research, focused on the status of art, its definition and its perception. Polanszky’s practice elucidates the discord between theory and real-life experience: how the former can set boundaries to forfeit personal expression for the sake of a paradigm we hold dear, out of fear, lack of imagination or failed mimicry. Theoretical practices demand compliance and Polanszky shows how a working routine is as much a necessity as it becomes a goal. It allows art to contravene conventions and create its own rules. Thinking essentially in spatial terms, Polanszky manipulates matter until he reaches the void, preferring processes to forms, ideas to achievements, sight to touch, and void, silence and absence. Each work is a metaphor, a myth condensed, a layering of experiences and symbols invested with its own inwardness.
Rudolf Polanszky (Wien 1951) lives and works in Wien.
Solo shows (selection): Rudolf Polanszky. Translineare Strukturen, Zeit Kunst Niederösterreich, Dominikanerkirche, Krems (2015); Paradoxe Transformationen, Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna (2013); Rudolf Polanszky: Frühe konzeptuelle Zeichnungen 1983-1985 und neue Arbeiten 2011-2012, Galerie Konzett, Vienna (2012); Rudolf Polanszky, Ancient & Modern, Londra (2010); Rudolf Polanszky: HYPERBOLISCHE RÄUME, Galerie Konzett, Vienna (2010); Transaggregate Strukturen, Galerie Konzett, Vienna (2009); Rudolf Polanszky, Galerie Hohenlohe, Vienna (2005).
Group show (selection): Franz Graf. Siehe was dich sieht, 21er Haus, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna (2014); POLARITY AND RESONANCE. Inside the Lenikus Collection, Lenikus Collection, Vienna (2014); Bildbaumeister, Parallel Vienna (2014); Bildbaumeister. extended, CasaRoja Temporäre Halle für Kunst, Linz (2014); Kulturpreisträger Niederösterreich 2013, Stadtmuseum St. Pölten (2013); “DYALOG”: Art from Vienna, Contemporary Istanbul Material Conceptualism – The Comfort of Things, Aanant & Zoo, Berlino (2013); A Tribute to Franz West (cur. by Anton Herzl), Galerie Konzett, Vienna (2013); The Silence, A Fiction (cur. by Simone Menegoi ), NMNM Nouveau Muséee National de Monaco, Monaco, (2013); Look with all your eyes, look, Frith Street Gallery, Londra (2011); Living und Working in Wien III, Kunsthalle Vienna (2011); Nitsch. Vorbilder, Zeitgenossen, Lehre, Künstlerhaus, Vienna (2011); Until the End of the World, AMP, Atene (2011), Iberische Kunst und Garteneröffnung, Werkstatt Kollerschlag (2011).