In the person of Wolfgang Hollegha (born in Klagenfurt in 1929, lives on the Rechberg in Styria) the Neue Galerie Graz honours one of the most significant painters to have emerged in Austria after 1945. As a member of the avant-garde painters’ group around the Galerie nächst St. Stephan in Vienna, he achieved early international success.
His painting is always based on the perception of objects, on the relationship between the artist and visible reality. Within this context the human body serves as a medium, as it were, absorbing images, transforming them and reproducing them, a process in which the body’s motor functions play an essential role. Hollegha starts by attempting to capture a motif physically by drawing it. Then in the painting – which is usually large-format – the motif is subsequently dismantled into a system of colour patches. In this way, an equivalent of the original object is produced. The relationship with the object is augmented with – and almost replaced by – a new, artistic reality.
The exhibition at the Neue Galerie traces Hollegha’s path up to the current day by showing key works. These are presented within their international context alongside pieces by his fellow-artists of the time, Morris Louis and Sam Francis.
