GUNTER DAMISCH | OTTO ZITKO

GUNTER DAMISCH

Born 1958 in Steyr/Upper Austria
Died 2016 in Vienna
Lived and worked in Vienna and Freidegg

1977 Matura in Linz
1977-1983 Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Master class Prof. Max Melcher and Prof. Arnulf Rainer, diploma in graphic arts
1983 Römerquelle Art Prize
1985 Otto Mauer Prize
Max Weiler Prize
1991 Karl Rössing Prize
1992 Visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna,
Master class for graphic arts
1995 Prize of the City of Vienna
1996 Anton Faistauer Prize for Painting of the Province of Salzburg
1997 Full professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
1998 Prize at the 2nd International Graphic Art Triennial, Prague
Upper Austrian State Culture Prize for Graphic Art
2011 Appreciation Award of the Province of Lower Austria

Exhibitions
1985 Biennale de Sao Paulo, Brasil
1991 Folkwangmuseum , Essen
2005 MUMOK, Vienna
2012 Museum Würth, Künzelsau
2013 Albertina, Vienna
2013 Provincial Gallery for Contemporary Art, St. Pölten
2013 Schiele Center, Krumau
2014 Museum of Modern Art, Passau
2015 City Gallery Klagenfurt, Palazzo Milesi, Split; Mana Contemporary, Jersey City.

His works are in numerous Austrian and international collections and museums.

OTTO ZITKO

1959 born in Linz
1977-1982 University of Applied Arts Vienna (Herbert Tasquil and Peter Weibel)
1996 Msgr. Otto Mauer Prize
2004 Prize of the City of Vienna for Visual Arts
2017 Cultural Prize for Visual Arts of the Province of Upper Austria

Originally a representative of the “Neue Wilde” (New Wild Ones), starting from expressive painting, since the 1980s the artist has been primarily concerned with drawing as a creative medium, regarding it not as a preparatory sketch or study for painting, but as an autonomous art form. 1986/1987 marked, according to his own statement, the end of his oil painting. In 1992 the painter covered two walls, the Ver Sacrum room and the graphic cabinet in the Vienna Secession, with his characteristic network of lines drawn across edges and corners. This opened up an illusionary space; the viewer found himself in the middle of the artwork. He subsequently realized these “all over” spatial drawings in other European cities (Berlin, Museum für Gegenwart, 2009; Bucharest, Premium Point, 2009; Bristol, Arnolfini, 2010) as well as permanent installations in the Viennese restaurant Skopik & Lohn, the University of Innsbruck, and various private collections, among others. In addition, he has worked with oil pens and acrylics on aluminum or paper, respectively, and these works also show his distinctive lineament.

His works can be found, among others, in the Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus, the Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz and the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Stift Admont.

Otto Zitko’s expressive calligraphic painting style is rooted in French Surrealism and Informel. The “Écriture automatique” developed by the group around André Breton was developed as a method to elude mind-controlled control and to bring unconscious, spontaneous elements to the surface. In its calligraphic form, which however also has plastic qualities, Zitko’s painting is close to the Informel of a Hans Hartung. However, this “connection to surrealist and also to expressive-abstract positions represents only one level in a network of content-related and formal points of reference”¹.
¹ Hemma Schmutz, Barbara Steiner, Ingeburg Wurzer (eds.), Otto Zitko. Die Konstruktion der Geste / The Construction of Gesture, Berlin 2007, p. 15.