Logic and Self-Will

Michael Kienzer marks a significant position in contemporary Austrian art. His work examines and at the same time looks to break away from accepted viewing habits using a minimalist-inspired sculptural idiom that is dissected into its tactile, semantic and communicative elements. We are invited on a journey through some of the seemingly permanent structures of everyday knowledge.

This catalogue accompanies Michael Kienzer’s solo exhibition in Space01 at the Kunsthaus Graz, where, now following Sol LeWitt and Pedro Cabrita Reis, he has created a giant sculpture. Like the line of a drawing veering out of control, his work opens up the space, surveying and critically measuring it. In the context of other current works, questions are raised about the meaning of participation in sculpture, the incomplete and one’s position with regard to the past and future of art.

In addition to an extensive section with pictures of works and installation views, the catalogue includes a foreword by Peter Pakesch and a conversation between the curator Katrin Bucher Trantow and the artist. In a further contribution, Franz Thalmair looks at Kienzer’s work as it has continued to leave a space open for different interpretations. Nicola Trezzi in turn looks for an inner affinity between Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Kienzer.

Verlag Czernin, Vienna