Gerwald Rockenschaub

reappropriation (allure / construct)
Schlossmuseum Linz

Funk and Minimalism

Gerwald Rockenschaub (b. Linz, 1952; lives and works in Berlin) ranks among the most internationally renowned exponents of Austrian contemporary art. Since the beginnings of his career in the early 1980s, when he made geometric-abstract oil paintings that aligned him with the Neo-Geo movement, he has developed a compelling oeuvre that is defined by radical reduction and precision. His works reveal borrowings from constructivist-concrete traditions as well as an interest in the abstraction of form that plays a key part in the genesis of pictograms and similar visual signifiers.

In developing his minimalist yet complex formal and chromatic interventions, he evinces a keen eye for the specifics of the particular exhibition setting. One essential aspect of his art is the disruption of habits of seeing and perceiving. For the Schlossmuseum Linz, Rockenschaub combines a novel color concept with works from different phases of his oeuvre. The title of the exhibition and the accompanying publication is a nod to this act of revisiting earlier works and transplanting them into a different context. The catalogue reappropriation (allure / construct) documents the exhibition; with an introduction by the artist.