To
immerse oneself in Siegfried Anzinger’s picture world means to
experience how one’s own knowledge of painting is continually being put
to the test. For each single work by the artist, who was born in Austria
and has been living in Cologne for thirty years, is a new examination
of the possibilities of painting, and thus a new challenge for the
observer. (Guido Reuter: Malerei, Zeichnung und Plastik: Betrachtungen zur formalen Seite der neueren Werke Siegfried Anzingers, in: Siegfried Anzinger Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz 2011).With
his latest works, presented at Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman
Vienna, Siegfried Anzinger has once again extended his recent repertoire
of motifs, revolving around paradise, Eros, Madonna, crucifixion,
ascension, animals and self-portrait, to now also include Pharaohs,
riding Indians, female moped riders, canoes and other boats populating
the various landscapes and their waterways. Anzinger describes his work
as a continuous rehearsing of subjects. It is not the cowboys and
Indians, though, nor even the squaw’s spread legs, that drive the
artist. With his rubbishy contents, much rather, he goes beyond the
banal, and strikes new paths. Mostly, the imagery of his works is put
together fairly loosely. The elements are rarely tied firmly together.
What is crucial is that they are not stuck together in a formal
arrangement. Each figure is hinted at only vaguely, and not one of their
outlines is complete. (Rudi Fuchs in: Anzinger Bilder 2011,
Snoeck Verlag Cologne 2011). Siegfried Anzinger paints what has got
stuck in his mind over the years. What comes to the fore, in the
process, from the subconscious, or regressively, are playmates that
accompany him on the path of new painting. As does his very own
aspiration of going one step further in painting. It’s as if one
dreamt the paintings. Around the loosely worked out motif, the painting
is tentative, very sensitive, so one sees how the painter, through the
wavering and faltering of the brush, lets himself be dragged as if by a
divining rod. (Rudi Fuchs: ibidem)
Siegfried Anzinger,
born in Weyer and der Enns, Austria, in 1953, has been living and
working in Cologne since 1982. Since 1997 he has been a professor at the
Düsseldorf Art Academy, since 2008 a member of the Austrian art senate.
He’s a recipient of the 1985 Oskar Kokoschka Award, the 1990 City of
Vienna Award, the Grand Austrian State Prize in 2003, and the 2006 Upper
Austria Culture Award. Numerous international exhibitions since 1982,
e.g. 1982 Dokumenta 7, 1984 Kunstmuseum Basel, 1986 Kunsthalle Hamburg
and Kunstmuseum Bonn, 1988
Zeitgeist Gropus-Bau Berlin and
Biennale di Venezia, Austrian Pavilion, 1996 Kunst-Station St. Peter
Cologne, 1998 Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Vienna, 2000
Rupertinum Salzburg and Kunsthalle Bielefeld, 2002 Sammlung Essl, 2004
Vienna Albertina, 2005 Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 2006 Kunstmuseum Mülheim
an der Ruhr, 2010 Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz. We have been exhibiting
Siegfried Anzinger’s works regularly since 1982 and have published five
books and catalogues on his sculptures, works on paper, and paintings.
Catalogue: Anzinger Bilder 2011, text by Rudi Fuchs, Snoeck Verlag Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-86442-004-7
