Kienzer’s sculptures subvert conventional mechanisms of perception and revolutionise the observer’s visual and cognitive system. Kienzer’s artistic strategy, accordingly, is the strategy of conspiration. He explores the potential, inherent in all objects, for aesthetic transformation and shifts in meaning. He pits his art against complex spatial and social systems of reference, and undermines the representative characteristics and innermost structures of the materials and spaces he encounters, in order to subtly and subversively readapt them to his purposes. In this manner, he brings about interventions that unsettle us – by disrupting the preconditioned, ever same chains of association that permanently signal and suggest to us the proper use of objects and reinforce the standards of our values. The delirium of representative mechanisms in Michael Kienzer’s work instantly captures the observer’s unconscious attention. Getting closer to the core of his art, though, requires further study and mental as well as physical mobility.

Michael Kienzer, born in Steyr in 1962, winner of the Otto Maurer Prize in 2001, lives and works in Vienna and Graz. Contributions to international exhibitions, solo exhibitions, and numerous projects for public spaces since 1984, e.g.: MUMOK Vienna (2009), Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Stift Admont (2007), MAK Vienna (2005), Oberösterreichische Landesgalerie, Linz (2003), Rupertinum Salzburg (2000), Kunsthalle Bludenz (1999), Kulturhaus Graz (1995), Kunsthaus Mürzzuschlag (1994, 2000), Museum Moderne Kunst, Vienna (1991), Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz (1988). Currently, works by Michael Kienzer can be seen in Malerei: Prozess und Expansion, MUMOK Vienna (until 03/10/2010), Blaue Stunden über den Dächern von Linz, Triennale Linz 1.0, OK Linz, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz and Oberösterreichische Landesgalerie, Linz (until 29/09/2010).

Michael Kienzer