Curator: Edelbert Köb
Exhibition organisation: Günther Oberhollenzer

In Max Weiler’s impressive oeuvre, spanning a period of 70 years, the work phase between 1962 - 1967 assumes a special position, which has not yet been adequately addressed in the comprehensive, existing reception of the artist’s work. Recent findings confirm that this was the time when Max Weiler took radical, crucial steps towards abstraction. Beforehand, the artist had already achieved – after painting from nature - painting ‘alongside’ nature and finally, abstract picture creations, in which nature was only contained in the form of its elementary materials and forces, as a vague image of recollection. After a first pinnacle of abstraction in the cycle “Als alle Dinge” (While All Things, 1960-61), which was still indebted to gestural Informel – thus, a style of the period – and included elements of spatial illusionism, the artist now advanced to fundamental considerations of an autonomous, self-reflective painting style at the height of its day.

The exhibition focuses on the painting cycle “Wie eine Landschaft” (Like a Landscape, 1962-67) – the subsequent title of a processual painting. This cycle not only allows for a new perspective on his oeuvre, but it also requires a correction of the artist’s previous evaluation as an – even though significant – outsider and above all, as an artist working out of his time.

Wie eine Landschaft, rostroter Berg, 1963 Egg tempera on canvas 96 x 195 cm Sammlung Essl Inv. Nr. 2769 Photo: Franz Schachinger © Yvonne Weiler	Wipe-off sheet of Wie eine Landschaft, rostroter Berg, 1963 Egg tempera on paper 20,5 cm x 44 cm Private property Photo: pixelstorm, Wien © Yvonne Weiler

Wipe-off Papers

Inspired by “wipe-off papers”, which he used to mix colours and wipe off brushes on, Weiler developed picture creations based on the analysis of fundamental, purely motorical painting processes and the flow of paints and binders. The quasi-natural, i.e. unconcious and coincidental creation of painterly constellations on the “wipe-off papers” is followed by a deliberate delineation of scarcely palm-sized details. He then transferred these, in the course of a transposing and translation process, onto varied, generally large formats. This concept of the picture production – in the sense of modernist theory it is radically avant-garde – was mentioned several times in the artist’s notes, but only in the course of the exhibition preparations it could be verified by Margret Boehm. While this method remained an episode, the enrichment of his means provided the foundation for the exceptional cosmological paintings in Max Weiler’s late period, when he decided to return explicitly to the metaphor of nature and from the process of pictorial finding to pictorial invention.

Die große Landschaftsverwandlung, 1968 Polyptych Painting Egg tempera on chipboard Ground area 170 x 300 cm With open wings 305 x 520 cm Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck Photo: Franz Schachinger © Yvonne Weiler

Polyptych Paintings

Contemporariness and sharing in current discourses is also given evidence in his so-called “Flügelbilder” (Polyptych Paintings, 1965-69), created subsequent to the series “Wie eine Landschaft”, four of which complete the exhibition allowing the revolutionary 1960s to draw to a close. Like the pictures before them, these works are completely original contributions to enriching and redefining the medium of painting, at first towards the processual, then through relinquishing the rectangular picture format and developing the picture object towards space.

Installation views at the Essl Museum, 2010 Photos: Gerald Zugmann

Chinese Scholar’s Rocks

Max Weiler’s lifelong passionate interest in Chinese thought and old Chinese art is accounted for in this exhibition by an exciting juxtaposition of paintings and Chinese scholar’s rocks. Scholar’s rocks – an ancient, in East Asia highly respected, while in our region little-known Chinese artform – are like Weiler’s “wipe-off papers” formed by the forces of nature and chance. It is only their deliberate selection and positioning – partly also indiscernible adaptations – which elevate them to the rank of a work of art. The congeniality and aesthetic concordance of works so different in nature and origin is striking. It is due to a cosmological understanding of the world and nature that both the Chinese and Max Weiler shared.

About 70 paintings from Max Weiler’s seminal work phase between 1962-1967 from the Essl Collection and numerous private and public lenders will be on show, as well as numerous Chinese scholar’s rocks from significant public and private collections. The Essl Museum owns the largest European collection of works of art by Max Weiler.

* On permanent loan by Peter and Irene Ludwig in the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne; photo: Rheinisches Bildarchiv, Cologne

MAX WEILER at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna,, ca. 1970 Picture: unknown 280 x 280 cm © Yvonne Weiler	Wie eine Landschaft, 1967 Ink and graphite on paper 60,1 x 70,1 cm Private property Photo: Franz Schachinger © Yvonne Weiler

Catalogue

An exhibition catalogue of approximately 230 pages will be published at Hirmer publishing house with texts by Max Weiler, Margret Boehm, Karlheinz Essl, Edelbert Köb, Adele Schlombs und Roland Wäspe.

Educational program

The art education team offers guided tours and workshops during the exhibition. Please access the current calendar of events at Kunstvermittlung.

Curator's Cut

We offer an exclusive guided tour by curator Edelbert Köb through the exhibition: Sunday, 21 March 2010 (3 p.m.) and Sunday, 21 April 2010 (7 p.m.) – booking under T: +43-(0)2243-370 50 150 anmeldung@essl.museum

Open House „Sommerfest“ Special – exclusive guided tour

Yvonne Weiler, widow of Max Weiler, will give an exclusive insight into the exhibition on Sunday, 13/06/10 (the guided tour starts at 3 p.m.) during the Open House-Weekend.

Free bus shuttle

Visitors can reach the Essl Museum conveniently by free bus shuttle from Vienna city centre, Albertinaplatz 2 (Tues – Sun, 10 a.m., 12 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and return)

Press photos

Press photos are available upon request at the Press Office or via download from Press. For further background information and photos please visit www.maxweiler.at (press).

Press and Public Relations Office:

Erwin Uhrmann (head): +43 (0) 2243/370 50 60, uhrmann@essl.museum
Regina Holler-Strobl: +43 (0) 2243/370 50 62, holler-strobl@essl.museum