On Thursday, 11 April 2024, Galerie Lehner will open the exhibition “Memories” with works by French artist Daphné Dorel (*1974).

Following an exhibition at Hangar 7 in Salzburg, the current solo show is the second in Austria to focus on expressive landscapes with a special colouring reminiscent of the Nabi school. Atmospherically, the images range from romanticising and nostalgic to utopian and gloomy. The memorabilia are usually based on photographs, which are transformed into colourful large formats.

The ambivalence in the expressiveness of the works is also evident in the technique used and the blending of hard and soft outlines. On the one hand, Dorel depicts the pictorial elements clearly and precisely, while at the same time playing with abstraction and the blurring of the individual areas of colour. The artist likes to use two different painting media, in most cases a mixture of oil and tempera. This creates an interesting tension when viewing the works.

Vernissage: Thursday. April 11th 2024, 6-9 pm

Private View: Friday, April 26th 2024, 3-7 pm

Duration: April 12th – May 3rd 2024

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On Thursday, 14 March 2024, Galerie Lehner will open the exhibition „Inseln die ich bewohnt habe // grün auf bewegungslosen Meeren“ with works by the two artists Anna Maria Brandstätter (*1977) and Auguste Kronheim (1937-2021).

The exhibition is centred around the quote „Inseln die ich bewohnt habe // grün auf bewegungslosen Meeren“  by the Italian poet and Nobel Prize winner Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968). It is primarily intended to refer to Ireland, where Auguste Kronheim’s stay on the island had a strong influence on her work and where she came into contact with Heinrich Böll. The woodcuts from this period illustrate an archaic society and are reminiscent of works by the German Expressionists. In the 1970s, Kronheim took a feminist stance and used the medium of woodcut for subtle works against the prevailing conditions. Auguste Kronheim received tribute later in life through a solo exhibition celebrating her 80th birthday at the Nordico Museum in Linz and her participation in exhibitions at the Albertina Modern shortly before her death in 2021. The exhibition spans an arc from the early works from Ireland to the socially critical works of the 1980s.

The island is also a central concept for Anna Maria Brandstätter. With her cosmic-poetic works, the Upper Austrian draughtswoman creates her own pictorial world that defies exact localisation and leaves the viewer with islands of emotion. The ink works rely on the power of the line and the reduction of colour, which reveals the parallels between the two artists in the exhibition. In the upcoming exhibition, Anna Maria Brandstätter is also expanding her media spectrum with new sculptural works, the Tiny Lemon Houses.

Preview: Thursday, March 14th 2024, 17 – 20 Uhr

Private View: Friday April 5th 2024, 15 – 19 Uhr

Exhibition: March 15th – April 6th 2024

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On Thursday 15 February 2024, Galerie Lehner will be showing a special double exhibition: in “Fascination Figure”, a selection of 19 etchings and lithographs by Pablo Picasso will be juxtaposed with sculptures by Giovanni Rindler, with the focus of the works being the examination of the human figure.

This exhibition presents a number of highlights from Pablo Picasso’s immense graphic oeuvre, as well as some sheets from what is probably his most famous series, the Suite Vollard, and some works from his more serene late work, the Suite 156. The selection of works shows Picasso’s ongoing exploration of the theme of Eros in all its allegorical variations.

Picasso’s graphic works are juxtaposed with Giovanni Rindler’s body-focussed artworks. Rindler’s sculptures are heavy in material and body, but graceful in movement and expression. The corposity and fullness of his heads and bodies are elegantly distorted and subtly abstracted. This results in stereometric representations of the body with an elegance all of their own.

The exhibition runs from 16 February to 7 March. Individual pieces will travel to WIKAM at Palais Ferstel from 2 to 10 March.
Gallery opening hours: Thursday and Friday from 10:00 to 18:00, Saturday from 10:00 to 13:00.

Preview: Thursday, 15 February 2024, 5 – 9 pm
Private View: Friday, 23 February 2024, 5 – 8 pm
Exhibition duration 16 February – 7 March 2024

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This is the first joint retrospective of the former artist couple Fritz Aigner (1930 – 2015) and Auguste Kronheim for decades. The focus is on their extremely intensive creative period in Ireland, which is to become the starting point for the most expressive works for both Kronheim and Aigner. The exhibition opens on February 11th and 12th with two preview days from 2pm to 7pm.

Kronheim soaks up the archaic society of Irish country life of the 1960s and condenses it in expressive but also poetic woodcuts that are in the tradition of German Expressionism. For Fritz Aigner Ireland becomes a special place of longing: The “Irish Drawings”, which were created in Ireland, are the highest quality of his oeuvre, but do not refer to the local color, they rather process general themes in often demonic allegories. In addition to these Irish works, the exhibition also shows the further development of these two exceptional artistic personalities: Auguste Kronheim remains true to the means of expression of the woodcut, but until 1980 found her very own, strongly shaped feminist style, which has lost none of its topicality to this day. Thus her works are the great rediscovery at the opening exhibition of the Albertina Modern and are now receiving the museum recognition which was long overdue.

In addition to some museum Irish drawings and paintings from the period up to 1975, we are also showing Fritz Aigner’s own block of works from 1968, which he created during his time in London. Here he processes all his new impressions of the metropolis, which is very different from Linz, Vienna, but also rural Ireland, to the highest level of drawing.

DURATION OF THE EXHIBITION
13^th of February until 27^th of February 2021

OPENING HOURS
Tuesday – Friday 2pm – 6pm, Saturday: 10am – 1pm

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As part of the group exhibition humanoid, the Galerie Lehner shows different positions of young, contemporary, figurative painting in Austria, which focuses on humans or on what is similar to humans – to literally take the title. The artists deal with allegories of humanity and the human body, with characters and physiognomies. In doing so, they point to humanity and its position in today’s digital, consumer-oriented, technological society, thereby confronting reality and illusion. Images of ourselves are created and thus a bridge to the old conflict of man as an image of God beaten.

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The window probably never had the honor to become the subject of a cross-sectional exhibition of the painting of the last hundred years: undoubtedly without justification, as this exhibition “The window to painting art” will prove. Windows and glass accompany the
Painting since the emergence of the panel painting and in the truest sense of the word as a painting ground and medium as well as a painterly challenge in the form of reflection, distortion but also the demarcation of the interior Landscape. The window in painting is often the compressed form of light, the main mood of color and depth. Interiors need the window as an effective light source and broadening the horizons of an introverted world. The more the window comes into focus and focus, the more it is no longer about the cramped interior, but about the extended landscape. The window only gives the frame and contrast of nature to the cultural space of man. Just as the window changes, so does the contemporary reception and interpretation of the glass surface in the façade. Depending on the painterly design, glass surfaces and windows serve to reflect on the environment, but also of one’s own person and personality, for the rhythmization and animation of painting, or even for supernaturalistic exaggeration. The challenge of this compilation on the subject is to put the window back into the background per se and thus open the window to painting.

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Water shyness should not be the Elke Schoenberger anyway. Otherwise there would not be so much of the wet stuff on their pictures, right? These are not watercolors, no. The technique is oil on canvas. So the paintings would probably not go down if the very wet fantasies depicted on them really came true. Oil floats on water. And wood anyway. From which the stretcher consists.

Vienna is known to have three things at once: city, land, river. And the latter does not want to stay in bed that’s been done to him. The Vienna suddenly remembers that it is actually a whitewater. Goes swimming with the U4. “Kagrantis”: Hey, like Atlantis. Only without the Atlantic. Dafuer with the Danube. In the apparently Kagran is flooded. Well, not quite Kagran. The Donaucity. Okay, that’s just a picturesque reflection in the water, over which two swans slide contemplatively. Speaking of wild animals. Crosswalks have already crossed the road earlier. However, no hooves down there. Climate change? Or broke out of the zoo? The wilderness moves into the city.

Nevertheless, the humans are not extinct. They are still waiting for the subway. On a lonely rock in the surf. Annual ticket holders? “Wiener Linien” is the name of the exhibition by the way (Galerie Lehner). Original: to disguise a garbage incinerator as a construction crane. (Oh, is their previous camouflage as a funny colorful church flown?) How do you call that at all? Fotosurrealismus? Extremely sensual (and really) Schoenberger describes light, shadows, reflections. A sun and a demise romance?

Black painter is that at least none. Okay, the primer is mostly black. And a pretty thinner work even has the title “black”. (Solar eclipse over the Mumok, the art bunker.) But otherwise: the most beautiful colors. In addition, Vienna does not sink. Not on foot. You wait, as I said, prefer the subway.

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