Wolfgang Hollegha Wolfgang Hollegha

OPENING
WEDNESDAY, 04.09.2019, 6-9 p.m.

WELCOME
6 p.m.
Dr. Hans Peter Haselsteiner

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Prof. Dr. Klaus Albrecht Schröder, General Director Albertina, Vienna

Wolfgang Hollegha, one of the most renowned representatives of abstract painting in Austria, is celebrating his 90th birthday this year. The STRABAG art forum pays tribute to the artist and presents selected works from six decades. As long as I look at things, they are alive. If I were to stubbornly draw it now, it would suddenly be dead, so I see that my body, the way I move my hand, the shift in gravity that you can feel, that all of this remains in the drawing. The spontaneity of the body plays a role. I don't paint geometrically because you don't see things geometrically. I have always started from nature, from what I see. My basic tendency is to escape geometry. 
Wolfgang Hollegha

Wolfgang Hollegha's place in Austrian art history cannot be overestimated. It has little to do with the classic abstraction of nature, as it was assumed by Herbert Boeckl in Austria. Rather, very early on - like Josef Mikl, later also Markus Prachensky - he can be assigned to an informal or abstract-expressionist tradition with American influences. Stations such as ICA London, Guggenheim Museum New York, participation in documenta III and the São Paulo Biennale are evidence of several stages in this steep and early career. 
Günther Holler-Schuster