Bernard Ammerer Bernard Ammerer

BERNARD AMMERER - MOVE

Bernard Ammerer confronts us with situations that we encounter on a daily basis in newspapers and television. We automatically change from being a neutral observer to being a participant, as the scenes continue to run in our heads.

Bernard Ammerer is fascinated by interpersonal relationships in his fellow humans. Moments in which a decision is made or in which a situation that does not necessarily have to be transparent for the uninitiated, "tips" or can tip, that's what he likes. And what you can do with your body. In sports, for example. About Zinedine Zidane's “battering ram manners” at the World Cup final on July 9th, when he simply “headed down” Marco Materazzi, the world may not be puzzling as long as about “Las Meninas”, but Zizou's skull doesn't leave the people indifferent either like Rembrandt's chicken the iconographers. Claudia Aigner

Bernhard Ammerer shows scenes from everyday life in youth culture: the artist stages settings full of melancholy and silence. The painted people appear dreamy and absent. Mag. Florian Steininger, curator of Ba-Ca Kunstforum, Vienna

Bernard Ammerer evokes the enigmatic in his figurative painting. Committed to painterly realism, we encounter young people in his works who are involved in a pictorial event that eludes any clear explanation. Moments of irritation and danger inherent in the images are negated by the demonstrative serenity of its protagonists. Sitting, standing or lying down, directing their gaze into the viewer space or gesturing into it, they interact both with one another and with the viewer. The scene of the action is the dusty periphery, the fringing zone of urban civilization, which can be understood both locally and globally. There are no specific locations that form the action space, but replaceable and omnipresent backdrops in front of which the action unfolds. It is similar with the people shown. Although they have individual features, they do not serve the functions of the portrait. In T-shirts, jeans and sneakers, they prove to be representatives of a young generation that freely and independently chooses their world of experience and proves their existence through constantly heightened, apparently arbitrary actions. The cool distance and superiority to what is happening and the viewer, which are expressed in the body language, counteract the signs of loss of control and crossing borders. The potential for violence is delegated to the viewer, who is confronted with the consequences of the inner pictorial action and not least with his own imagination. At this point, the previously so vehemently postulated sovereignty is replaced by a feeling of ambivalence and the levels of reality of the image and viewer space merge. Are we up to the game of danger or are we victims of our own empathy? Ammerer's pictures subtly disturb the equanimity of the viewer and that is precisely where their appeal lies.
Katerina Cerny, art historian and freelance curator, Vienna

Bernard Ammerer's painterly work is dedicated to realism, which appears as an artificially constructed world despite all the attention to detail. The artist selects acquaintances and friends for photo shoots, who then act as protagonists of his picture scenes. Postures, poses and gestures of the people are determined by Ammerer: introverted crouching positions, hasty running, lost standing, cool break-dance numbers, aggressive macho poses.
Ammerer questions the social dimension of people in society, their position in public - how much can the individual show his own face, what is a mask and a rehearsed role? The artist pursues these behavioral patterns. In doing so, he is guided by the examples of his generation.
Usually a conversation with a hitherto unknown person begins with the phrase: What do you do for a living? An initial social location and categorization takes place.
After the photo shoots, Ammerer constructs picture situations that consist of two different modules: the figure and the location. Both are combined incoherently like in a free photo montage. This is about breaking the system of order strictly prescribed by society.
For example, two people appear in the pictures on the autobahn: one in the foreground, absorbed in himself, the other balancing on the guardrail with an outstretched arm - perhaps stopping the car, but with his back to the traffic? The scenarios often seem surreally dreamy. A boy with Convers sports shoes points to the peripheral zone on the horizon, like a visionary, healing gesture: Here is finally the long-awaited destination of our trip!
Florian Steininger

Despite the hustle and bustle of the painted settings, the figures remain in their own world, are isolated from each other, which creates a certain coolness and desolate atmosphere. Ammerer is by no means concerned with the sociological reflection of a no future generation that “depends” on parking lots, but with certain social rules of conduct that are questioned in his painterly montage. But there are also new narrative strands within the image area without any rational context. As soon as the artist picks up a pen and brush, he noticeably abstracts the reality previously captured with the camera. Every brushstroke, every stroke with the pencil marks a trace of the individual process and free interpretation, despite being true to reality. This abstract value can also be felt in the combinatorial between figure and everyday space and in the dialogue between painting and drawing. In some pictures, Ammerer gives the pure drawing a lot of space by leaving the background graphical. Before the artist found painting about six years ago, he mainly devoted himself to drawing. This quality can also be seen in the painterly and colourist formulations of people and space, especially in the meticulous modeling of the robes. Florian Steininger

BERNARD AMMERER 

1978 born in Vienna
2001 Degree in law, Vienna
2003 court year in Vienna
2003 master class for painting at the University of Applied Arts with Professor Wolfgang Herzig, Vienna
2004 Three-week participation in the summer academy for fine arts in Salzburg with the painter Xenia Hausner
2005 studied painting at the Institute for Fine and Media Art with Johanna Kandl, University of Applied Arts, Vienna
Lives and works in Vienna

Exhibitions (selection)

2007  
Move; Strabag Kunstforum, Wien (EA)
Qingdao Art Museum, Qingdao, China (GA)
Strabag Art Award Annerkennungspreis, Strabag Kunstforum, Wien (GA)
RED; Galerie Frey, Wien (Gruppenaust.)

2006  
The Essence; Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien (Gruppenaust.)
Two Perspectives; Galerie Frey, Wien 
REAL; Kunsthalle Krems (Gruppenaust.)

2005   
New Perspectives; Galerie Frey, Wien (GA)\par
Frisch gestrichen; Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Gruppenaust.)
Malstrom; Universität für angewandte Kunst, Wien (Gruppenaust.)
Alle reden vom Wetter; Hotel Kunsthof, Wien (Gruppenaust.)

2004  
Stadtgalerie Vienna (Gruppenaust.)


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