Klaus Albrecht Schröder

This kaleidoscopic exhibition catalog celebrates Lichtenstein’s multifaceted career—from his iconic achievements in the Pop Art movement and beyond.Published to mark the centennial of Lichtenstein’s birth, this retrospective volume is brimming with brilliant reproductions that highlight the entirety of the artist’s oeuvre. It features the acclaimed works that helped establish 1960s pop art—panels inspired by comic strips and advertising, which send up societal stereotypes. It looks at his pioneering use of painted benday dots and carefully drawn and in-filled brushstrokes, his interiors and landscapes, re-stagings of still lifes, his expansion into sculpture and ceramics, and works that pay homage to famous artists such as Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh.Throughout this magnificent catalog readers will come to appreciate not only Lichtenstein’s vibrant and dynamic use of color, line, and texture, but also how his continuing confrontation with the visual language of popular culture and consumerism continues to resonate today.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) moved to Paris as a 22-year-old art student and is regarded as probably the last true bohémien in Montmartre. The exhibition catalogue to mark the 100th anniversary of his death shows him for the first time as a leading member of the avant-garde who carried the revolution of Primitivism well into the 20th century. Modigliani’s famous nudes, unusual portraits and unique sculptures are contrasted with works by Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brâncusi and André Derain as well as artefacts from so-called “primitive” cultures. In doing so the volume focuses in particular on Modigliani’s lifelong study of the art of Primitivism, which also interested the artist friends who influenced his work. Some 100 works are on view, including numerous main works by Modigliani from the great museums and most important private collections from America to Asia.

Xenia Hausner is one of the most important Austrian woman artists of our time. This decorative volume focuses on the aspect of stagecraft which characterises all her works. Starting from the early works from the 1990s to her most recent moving Exilesseries, the publication lures us into the mysterious world of inter-personal relationships.The artist, who previously worked as a set designer, constructs three-dimensional settings for her pictures in her studio beforehand. Fragments of cars or train compartments become backdrops, and mundane everyday objects become co-actors in her quirky comic strips. The artist confronts us through staged excerpts with the contradictions inherent within ourselves, with facets which we do not reveal to the outside world. The fiction is what permits her to search with a penetrating vision for the true heart of the matter and to reveal it in her pictures.

The Jablonka Collection is regarded as one of the highest-profile repositories of American and German art of the 1980s. In this catalogue the art dealer, gallerist and curator Rafael Jablonka (*1951) provides for the first time an insight into his wide-ranging collection, which is dedicated primarily to artists of his own generation.Rafael Jablonka has collected art for decades according to the basic principle of assembling multiple works from the different creative phases of artists. With some 120 works –paintings, works on paper, sculpture and installations –the catalogue introduces the oeuvres in question and shows a representative cross-section of the extensive Jablonka Collection, which was presented to the Albertina on permanent loan in 2019.

Hermann Nitsch produced his first “poured” paintings around 1960. In this form of action painting, the artist is primarily concerned with the substance of the paint, which he investigates from one Painting Action to the next. This catalog illustrates the development of his painterly works from the early 1960s to the present day. The main focus of the content lies in the characteristics of the various work cycles. In addition to the first “splatter” paintings it shows floor “splatter” paintings from the Red Cycle (1995), works from the Six-Day Play (1989) or the yellow Resurrection Cycle (2002). While one colour dominates in the monochrome works, in others a real explosion of colours takes place. The paint is splattered or sprayed; it may be applied in liquid form or impasto. The artist may use a paintbrush or smear the paint with his hands. The focal point is the exploration of the state of the paint, which varies between liquid and solid.

The wall was his passion. If we look at urban walls with the eyes of Burhan Dogancay, a completely different world opens up: half - ripped posters on rough brickwork, covered in graffiti, scribblings, messages, signs, stickers. From this rich stock of struct ures, signs and symbols the artist created his wall fragments, his “Urban Walls”. Dogancay (1929 – 2013) was born in Istanbul and settled in New York in 1964, where he moved within the art scene around Robert Rauschenberg und Jasper Johns. His subject is the visual perception of texture, place and memory, which he researches in serial wor ks. For his “Urban Walls” he records house walls and façades all over the world in a variety of media, using a wide range of materials and techniques such as photography, collage and painting. His works are archives of past decades which capture the spirit of the times. From the 1970s and 1980s he progresses from these works to develop his “Ribbons” – calligraphic paintings of poetic charm.

The Russian Avant-Garde, which brought about an artistic revolution between 1905 and 1934, represents one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of 20th-century art. Artists like Malevich, Kandinsky and Chagall are highly esteemed the world over. But this movement was much more diverse than is generally realised. For the first time this artistic wealth is being presented in a major sequence of pictures. 140 masterpieces of painting demonstrate the parallel development of widely different styles, design principles and aesthetic ideas. The avant-garde artists influenced each other or were sometimes in conflict with each other. At the same time you could find advocates of representational Expressionism and supporters of pure abstraction; styles like Primitivism, Cubo-Futurism and Suprematism followed each other in succession. Surprising contrasts of works by different artists demonstrate the differences, so that the successive conflicting –isms are clearly demonstrated. Through this visual confrontation the picture of all the many different forms of Russian avant-garde come alive.