From the beginning of his artistic career Heimo Zobernig has grappled with conventions in the visual arts and with the question of the relationship between form and the creation of meaning. As the genre that, historically, has been uniquely coupled with artistic subjectivity, painting has been at the heart of Zobernig’s investigations. For many years, starting in 1977, Zobernig produced gouaches on an almost daily basis—first postcard-sized and then on A4 paper—in which he explored every possible register of painting: casual paint application, expressive gesture, and, above all, color effects and the interplay of colors and shapes. In the early 1980s he delved deep into the language of geometric abstraction, as it was seen in works by the Zurich School of Concretists for instance: artists such as Max Bill, Richard Paul Lohse, and Verena Loewensberg, who explicitly sought to banish expression from art. Zobernig’s subsequent gouaches show him deploying the formal vocabulary and design principles of Concrete art in a way that deliberately flirts with representation and narration.

In a work such as “Untitled” (1984), for instance, the tip-to-tip black triangles crowned with a cream-colored disc indubitably form a “figure,” whose symbolically anthropomorphic shape casts doubt on the notion of “pure” geometric form. Other sheets from the same period seem to process impressions left on Zobernig by the works of art and architectural monuments that were important to him at that time—witness the arch with a view of a “green landscape” that could easily be found at a villa by Andrea Palladio, or the figure formed from layered planes, which calls to mind the segmented human figures by the Greek-Austrian sculptor Joannis Avramidis. The gouaches made by Zobernig in the 1980s also notably contain the discs, grids, and colored stripe-formations that recur throughout his entire oeuvre. They appear in videos, sculptures, and installations, reaffirming Zobernig’s interest in a cross-genre engagement with pictorial forms and formats, that in turn casts a sharp light on the rules and conventions of mediumbased categorization. Also of relevance in this context is Zobernig’s active interest in the relationship of image and text, and, in a wider sense, of artistic work to its institutionalization. “Untitled” (2012), for instance, depicts a “tornado” of rub-on letters, numbers, and signs—question marks, ampersands, dollar signs, and so on—even sticky dots and shapes. Here and there words loom into view, for instance “Helvetica” (a font often used by Zobernig), “made,” and “instant lettering.” Entirely at odds with the rubbed-on demand for “order,” artistic work, critique, and questions of economy form a chaotic round dance that once again marks out Zobernig’s works on paper as a place of artistic assessment and positioning.

Manuela Ammer

Further works by Erwin Wurm in the Baloise art collection:

Inv. no. 1234, Untitled, 2007, Gouache on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm

Inv. no. 1235, Untitled, 1998, Gouache on paper, 29.9 x 21 cm

Inv. no. 1237, Untitled, 1987, Gouache on paper, 29.6 x 20.9 cm

Inv. no. 1238, Untitled, 1986, Gouache and collage on paper, 30.6 x 21.5 cm

Inv. no. 1239, Untitled, 1986, Mixed media on paper, 29.9 x 20.9 cm

Inv. no. 1240, Untitled, 1985, Gouache on paper, 29.9 x 20.1 cm

Inv. no. 1241, Untitled, 1982, Gouache on paper, 29.8 x 21 cm

Inv. no. 1302, Untitled, 2013, Acrylic on paper, 29.7 x 20.7 cm

Inv. no. 1303, Untitled, 2013, Acrylic on paper, 29.6 x 20.7 cm

Inv. no. 1305, Untitled, 2012, Acrylic and adhesive dots on paper, 29.6 x 20.8 cm

Inv. no. 1306, Untitled, 2012, Paper, folded, 29.6 x 20.9 cm

Inv. no. 1307, Untitled, 2012, Pencil and ballpoint pen on laser print, 29.6 x 20.9 cm

Inv. no. 1308, Untitled, 2003, Wax crayon on paper, 29.6 x 20.9 cm

Inv. no. 1309, Untitled, 1985, Gouache on paper, 29.8 x 20.5 cm

Inv. no. 1310, Untitled, 1984/2001, Gouache on paper, 29.7 x 20.8 cm

Inv. no. 1312, Untitled, 1984, Gouache on paper, 30.2 x 20.6 cm

Inv. no. 1313, Untitled, 1984, Gouache on paper, 30.3 x 20.4 cm

Inv. no. 1314, Untitled, 1984, Gouache and pencil on paper, 30.3 x 20.5 cm

Inv. no. 1315, Untitled, 1984, Gouache on paper, 29.5 x 20.8 cm