GERWALD ROCKENSCHAUB

Provenance:
- Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne.
- Purchased from the above by the present owner in 1988, since then private collection Rhineland.

The Austrian artist Gerwald Rockenschaub was born in Königswiesen in 1952. He first studied history, psychology and philosophy at the University of Vienna, and from 1978 he undertook a parallel course of study at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst (school of applied arts) in Vienna. From 1980 he turned to Neo-Geo painting, which adopted American Minimal Art and the ideas of Pop Art. In 1984 he had his first solo show in Vienna and Hamburg, and since then has exhibited in the whole of Europe. He was the co-designer of the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and took part in Documenta 12 in 2007 with various works. Today he lives and works in Berlin.
From the end of the 1980s his style became increasingly radical. The means and forms employed became increasingly simple, the colours increasingly bright and he skilfully combined these to produce radically reduced works. In his works he uses industrial materials such as PVC, Plexiglas and aluminium, prepared with the help of a computer in order to reduce the artistic intervention.

The present work from 1987 is a typical example of Rockenschaub’s ideas. A few broadly applied colours contrast with one another. The green and white silk screen is set in a pink aluminium crate. Here he is using one of his favourite materials. The abstract silk screen offers a smooth surface, in which no motif can be seen. With this work an economy of means is achieved, which is emphasised by the essential lines of the work/which emphasises the essential lines of the work.