MUNTEAN / ROSENBLUM at the Essl Museum, Austria until 2 Jan 09

Exhibition Description:

The Essl Museum will be presenting new pictures and films by the Vienna-based artist couple Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum. They have created a series of new large-scale works specifically for this exhibition, that will be shown straight from the artists' studio, complemented by works from Essl's own collection.

The duo draw inspiration for their paintings from classical iconography. They adopt color symbolism, hand gestures, and postures from the pictorial tradition of the Christian occident; yet their representations, so burdened with pathos, have been isolated from a religious context and applied to present day. Teenagers and young adults appear in usually anonymous urban contexts, representative of the young apathetic outsider.

The atmosphere associated with this scene lends to the paintings a haunting sense of time suspended. The character's ostensible pessimism comprehends a state of being in today's world: a Western world which increasingly encourages the loss of identity as we experience or lose ourselves in an increasingly virtual existence.

The exhibition is curated by Muntean/Rosenblum together with Günther Oberhollenzer
Exhibition management: Günther Oberhollenzer, Karina Simbürger (studio Muntean/Rosenblum).

EXHIBITION PARTNERS: bauMax AG / Café + Co International Holding / Donau Versicherungs-AG - Vienna Insurance Group / Siemens AG Österreich / Telekom Austria AG

Description:

IMAGE: MUNTEAN / ROSENBLUM
Untitled (We felt ourselves to be….), 2008
oil on canvas
260 x 200 cm
Photo: Mischa Nawrata, Wien
© Muntean / Rosenblum

Full Contact Details:

ESSL MUSEUM – Contemporary Art
An der Donau-Au 1
3400 Klosterneuburg
Austria
T: +43(0)2243-370 50 EXT 150
E: info (at) essl.museum