Herbert Brandl

A term that is as promising and hopeful as it is vague and elusive. Both utopian and dystopian. Tomorrow, everything could be ‘better’ than today, and yet uncertainty remains. The title conveys the fundamentally conflicting tone of Herbert Brandl’s exhibition: the artist describes himself as a ‘passionate pessimist.’

The Kunsthaus Graz exhibition centres on the artist’s associative, process-based way of working, interwoven as a convergence of the seen, the experienced and the imagined. Childhood memories and cartoons serve as impulses, as do his own photographs, television images, webcams and current images drawn from the internet. As traces they flow into the painting process, where they are condensed, abstracted or even erased. The exhibition brings together Brandl’s most important groups of works – abstract and figurative painting, sculpture – as well as works by Edelgard Gerngross and Thomas Baumann. They are positioned in relation to one another and also to the space of the Kunsthaus, emphasizing their biographical, conceptual and material interconnections. Developed in collaboration with designer Rainer Stadlbauer, Brandl’s display is based on his reflections as an artist, translating these into a spatial, architectonic form.

The Kunsthaus Graz exhibition centres on the artist’s associative, process-based way of working, interwoven as a convergence of the seen, the experienced and the imagined. Childhood memories and cartoons serve as impulses, as do his own photographs, television images, webcams and current images drawn from the internet. As traces they flow into the painting process, where they are condensed, abstracted or even erased. The exhibition brings together Brandl’s most important groups of works – abstract and figurative painting, sculpture – as well as works by Edelgard Gerngross and Thomas Baumann. They are positioned in relation to one another and also to the space of the Kunsthaus, emphasizing their biographical, conceptual and material interconnections. Developed in collaboration with designer Rainer Stadlbauer, Brandl’s display is based on his reflections as an artist, translating these into a spatial, architectonic form.

The displays on the two exhibition floors of the Kunsthaus differ from one another at first glance, even if they do follow one curatorial line of thought: To take the singularity of the individual work seriously, but also to constantly place it in relation to the other works here, and to the space. In Space02, a multi-section yellow wall zigzags its way through the room. The arrangement of the individual walls in the space produces a dynamic combination of view and sequence: we only ever see sections, and never the whole front or back of the multi-section wall. Because the individual walls jump back and forth, certain images ‘vanish’ in and through the movement, while new contiguities and perspectives constantly emerge. In Space01 at the Kunsthaus, several large-format abstract canvases, mounted on ceiling-high metal supports, are giving a structure to the space. Moving past the larger pictures, further perspectives, images and spaces open up unexpectedly. The canvases are all arranged in such a way that each can be observed individually from one position. However, they also form ensembles or are fragmented in and through movement.

Accompanying the TOMORROW exhibition there will be a limited edition artist’s book and a catalogue published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König. Both are based on books that Brandl has brought out for himself and a few friends almost annually in recent years, and which reveal his social and artistic interests. In My Instagram Diary and My Facebook Year, the artist uses his own photos and images from the internet. Drawing on these, a publication has been created for the Kunsthaus Graz that is in many ways exceptional. It traces how the exhibition evolved from the beginning of 2019 through to October 2020.