Libidinally charged works of the last 3 decades by Herbert Brandl are presented by Florian Steininger and Ingried Brugger in the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien. CastYourArt visited the artist at his atelier and produced an artist-portrait. Watch now …

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The images constantly seduce the gaze, captivate it and invite the viewer to transcend the pictorial surface, look behind it in order to discover the spaces opening up within their –our- interior.
Brandl does not start his work on the basis of reality in order to abstract from it, he rather develops a pictorial grammar of perception –feelings or thoughts- and avails himself of the musical vocabulary of colour and of the personal expressive panache as trademark. more »

In the exhibition “PHANTOMAK” in the Vienna University of Technology, sculptures by the artist Tomak are presented to the public for the first time. The sculpture series PHANTOMAK consists of eleven individual busts of the artist, produced in a complex technical procedure – Wood Jackson, Rotpeter, Height, Headquarters…

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„Thus my work completes itself by the sculpture.“ (TOMAK)
The sculpture series PHANTOMAK was produced in the course of the past one and a half years. The works were manufactured in close cooperation with the Vienna University of Technology (institute of art and design – spatial development and modelling), the German company Rampf Tooling and an Austrian foundation. CastYourArt is responsible for the organisation of the project. more »

Together with Maria Lassnig he is considered the originator of Informal Art in Austria. His works are on display in the key museums all over the world. An artist’s portrait of Arnulf Rainer. This podcast was realised with the kind support of UNIQUA ArtCercles.

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He visited André Breton, the writer and theoretical head of surrealism in Paris – this was the moment he turned away from surrealism. Together with Maria Lassnig, he is considered the originator of informal painting in Austria, his works are on display in the main museums on the entire globe. The road to success has at times been stony, tells Rainer, whose first solo exhibition took place in the St. Stephan gallery of Monsignore Otto Mauer in 1955. The beginning of his overpaintings for instance were not based upon any philosophical concepts, but were simply a consequence of his lack of money to buy new canvasses. Instead, the artist resorted to painted canvasses - pictures from the flea market. They were cheaper to buy. more »

Rather than expressing something directly, the force of artistic expressivity lies within manifesting the getting-to-talk within the work itself.

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„I will now reveal the secret: I am talking about an important artist“ (Christian Ludwig Attersee)

Random. Clean Cuts. The works of the new series by the artist Alexander Steinwendtner contain an essential and fascinating quality of human endeavour, referred to as making art: precise artistic expression arises stems from an artistic attunement, not quite definable and therefore not attainable in an exact manner.

In other words, the artist is able to specify what falls to him and that art is not simply mastered, but in fact created. Quality, says Alexander Steinwendtner, arises from a time that he is somewhat unable to define. Therefore the artistic agenda is to venture into the undefined, in order to reach the concept. more »

Aivazovsky is regarded as the master of seascapes. In his lifetime he dedicated himself to this motif as a metaphor for life, of desire as well as the struggle between nature and culture.

For the first time, the Bank Austria Kunstforum shows a retrospective of the artist outside of Russia and the Ukraine. There are fifty representative paintings on display, among them main works from the Aivazovsky Museum in Feodosia and the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg that have never been shown abroad.

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As legend has it, he died in his studio with a brush in his hand, 111 years ago. In his exceptionally long life he actually left only this one painting unfinished, out of the estimated 6000 he painted. In his lifetime his works were already marvelled at, admired, venerated – and purchased. more »

“The First Hit of PHANTOMAK: The Ear Problem. No Problem.”
Masquerade, demasquerade, illusion, delusion, covering, decovering, position, superposition, appearance, constellation. CastYourArt presents the first series of works of the PHANTOMAK project by TOMAK (painting, collage, grafic) and Alek Kawka (photography). Exhibition: September 14 until October 8, 2010 | Mo-Fr | 12p.m. – 5p.m. Opening: September 13 6p.m.

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PHANTOMAK:
For CastYourArt, TOMAK creates the sculpture series PHANTOMAK. 10 individual busts (PHANTOMAK, Hard Licker, Night Rider, …), TOMAK’s head, scanned in 3D, cut out by a milling robot of the Vienna University of Technology at the Institute of Art and Design, and processed by the artist. Objects at the limits of the possible. more »

Constantin Luser challenges us to enter the maze of his imagination: he corners us against the wall of our indifference and confronts us with the unavoidable question whether we will ever be able to escape. But escape what? A portrait.

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In any case, it tames the wildness of our thinking, which means that when it happens –ever so rarely- the hegemony of the concept is erased and for a moment we are cured of our illness separating us from time – our rationality. more »

Götz Valien calls himself a “picture-maker”. The term seems to refer to someone who produces a handicraft rather than a work of art. However, when one looks at his work as a whole, the self-designation “picture-maker” loses the crudeness that one might be tempted to initially expect.

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It is not necessarily the same whether one paints pictures or whether one engages with the creation of pictures as a phenomenon through painting. As a picture-maker, Götz Valien is interested in the efficiency with which pictures release, whether emotionally, consciously, or unconsciously, that which is buried deep within us, in the same way figurative language can. In his work, he uses this effectiveness and at the same time, exposes it—that is the agenda behind his picture-making art. more »

The early work of Nadine Rennert can be considered abstract art. It explores the formal possibilities of its material. It plumbs the depths of its soul, says the artist.

The work of the Berlin-based artist has moved lately more in the direction of figurative art. The use of materials such as fleece, wool, leather, skin or down remains the same, as well as the approach of trying to find what lies within the raw material, within its soul. What has changed is that the material of her work must now be understood in a broader sense. Individual sentences in the form of statements and situations from stories and fairy tales have been added. more »