Landscape with 14 cans
2019, oil on canvas, 150 x 115 cm
1953 born in Feldbach
1973 - 79 Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Prof. Walter Eckert
Thoughts on Wolfgang Wiedner's painting
The seemingly arbitrarily selected moments of art historical development are intended to provide a foil against which Wolfgang Wiedner's painterly work can be received. Wiedner is influenced by the "New Painting" of the 1980s, which, in the spirit of postmodernism, revisited the vocabulary of past developments. His art naturally takes place against the background of the history of painting, which is available as a reference. The painters of his environment already mentioned have also consciously taken up art-historical formulations, used them in a quotation-like manner, as it were, and subsequently varied them.
In his latest presentation, Wiedner summarises essential moments of his art. He again shows studio scenes, everyday objects, landscapes, flowers, fruits, houses, animals but also reduced geometric forms such as spheres and coloured surfaces. These motifs come together to form sensitive records of his own surroundings, but also open up to surreal-seeming pictorial conceptions in which the familiar objects float in strictly arranged formations above the realistically painted landscape. He isolates certain pictorial elements, multiplies them in a manner similar to Pop Art and combines them into new compositions. This creates an enigmatic impression of what is seen, which leads familiar things to unexpected contexts. These seemingly surreal representations dissolve completely in other paintings, for example, when the artist reproduces with captivating virtuosity the simplest of subjects - a blossom, a bird, a seemingly insignificant and unspectacular landscape or a pot smeared with paint from his own studio. This happens on a highly sensitive level, so that the banal object becomes a special gem. Wiedner manages to express the emotional content of the motif. As in the tradition of still life painting, the individual objects are rendered as if they were portraits. The "mood impressionist" turns a single bird sitting on a branch, an inconspicuous blossom or an unnoticed section of the landscape into a special situation. Often it is his own longing and subjective emotionality that turns these simple subjects into extraordinary places. Wiedner succeeds impressively in rendering this stillness and contemplativeness without any pathos. Nothing heroic, nothing idealising and no spectacle can be found behind Wiedner's pictorial conceptions. But if you think of Edouard Manet's small depiction of an asparagus, you are very close to this painting. The artist, who lives in the countryside, is connected to a certain reality of the place, draws from it, as it were, and experiences it in an emotional visuality. The authenticity of the place and the delicacy of the painting, which are so characteristic of Wiedner's work, should not, however, obscure the fact that the artist analyses pictorial possibilities on a meta-level, with which he seems to question reality and its representation through his painting.
Wiedner does not criticise obviously and explicitly. The artist transfers criticism into the realm of the visual and attempts to discuss events within the medium of painting. In doing so, he remains within a tradition of representational painting that does not seek to expand the medium, but rather its pictorial possibilities of effect. Thus Wiedner's painting can also be understood to a certain extent as "painting about painting".
Text excerpt Günther Holler-Schuster
Bullfinch
2020, oil on canvas 30 x 40 cm
at the schwabengraben
2019, oil on canvas 75 x 90 cm
Ausstellungen
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1976 Riegersburg, Styria
1984 Graz, New Gallery
1985 Vienna, Gallery Steinek; St.Pölten, Gallery Maringer
1986 Straden, Styria, Rauch Gallery
1987 St.Pölten, Gallery Maringer; Trieste, Gallery Torbandena
1988 Mannheim, Fausto Panetta Gallery; Vienna, Steinek Gallery
1989 Mannheim, Fausto Panetta Gallery
1990 Graz, New Gallery
1991 Frohnleiten, cloister of the monastery; Mannheim; Galleria Fausto Panetta
1992 Hartberg, Gallery at the church square; Mannheim,Galleria Fausto Panetta
1993 Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta
1994 Graz, Gallery Schafschetzy; Trieste, Galleria Torbandena
1995 Neumarkt/Raab; Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta
1996 Leoben, LKH
1997 Graz, Gallery Schafschetzy; Trieste, Galleria Torbandena; Markt Hartmannsdorf, Volksbildungswerk
1998 Saalfelden, Rotary Club "Mikrokosmos
1999 Bruck/Mur, Art Magazine Hell
2000 Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta "La vita è bella
2002 Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta, "Inside and Outside"; Salzburg, Black Dragon Society, "Nomads - Monads"; Graz, Galerie Schafschetzy, "nature morte"
2003 Gleisdorf, Wolf Collection; Mattersburg, Schinner Gallery
2004 Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta; Fürstenfeld, Gallery Gölles, "Au et al.
2005 Graz, Schafschetzy Gallery; Vienna, Himmelpforte Gallery
2006 Frankfurt/Main, ECB, "Insights" (from the collection of the Austrian National Bank); Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta, "From my microcosm"; Vienna, Kunsthandel Ernst, "In the green".
2007 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery (with Karl Karner); Graz, Schafschetzy Gallery, "Erlkönig im Elfenbeinturm" (Erl King in the Ivory Tower)
2008 Vienna, Christine Ernst Art Trade, "Birdland
2009 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "Inside & Outside
2010 Istanbul, Galerie St. Georg, "Stillgelebtes"; Markt Hartmannsdorf, Dorfhof (with Franz Vass); Graz, Galerie Schafschetzy, "Kepos
2012 Graz, Raiffeisenhof "Landstriche"; Groß-Umstadt near Frankfurt, Galerie Lebensart
2013 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "the bird, the landscape, the pig".
2014 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "Long Nights
2015 Vienna, Kunsthandel Christine Ernst, "Weltanschauung"; Graz, Galerie Schafschetzy, "Menschen, Landschaften, Gurken" (People, Landscapes, Cucumbers)
2016 Fürstenfeld, Galerie im Alten Rathaus (cooperation Galerie Gölles), "Der Weg ins Freie" (The Way to the Open Air)
2017 Kunsthalle Feldbach, "Painting"
2018 Fürstenfeld, Gallery Gölles, "47° North 16° East"
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selection)
1982 Graz, Künstlerhaus - XVIIth International Painters' Week
1983 Rome, Galleria La Pigne "Young Artists from Styria"; Vienna, Galerie ggk "Viennese Blood
1984 Madrid, ARCO
1984-85 Graz/Vienna/Bochum "New Ways of Plastic Design in Austria".
1985 Vienna, Steinek Gallery "Favouring Sex"; Zagreb-Beograd-Ljublijana "New Art from Austria".
1986 Vienna, Austrian Tobacco Museum; Mannheim, Kunstverein; Galleria Fausto Panetta; Graz, Galerie Moser "Art for Amnesty International
1987 Graz, Cultural Centre at the Minorites "Lust for Life"; Eastern Styria Region "Magical Signs
1988 Mannheim, Kunstverein, Galleria Fausto Panetta; Vienna, Galerie Steinek "Pick Ups
1989 Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta; Obermayerhofen Castle "Austria Collection
1990 Graz, Neue Galerie "Art of the 80s
1991 Vienna, Oberes Belvedere "Young Austrians"; Vienna, City Hall "Ins Licht gerückt"; Szombathely, Kèptàr Muzeum "Young Austrians
1992 Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta
1993 Pordenone, Fiera d`Arte, Galleria Torbandena
1994 Bologna, Fiera d`Arte, Galleria Torbandena
1995 Oderzo, Palazzo Foscolo "Stanze
1996 Mannheim Art Association "Servus
1999 Mannheimer Kunstverein, Galleria Fausto Panetta; Trieste, Galleria Torbandena "Arbeiten Auf Papier"; Schloss Puchheim; Galleria Torbandena "Arbeiten Auf Papier"; Schloss Puchheim
Upper Austria "Art from Southern Burgenland"; Markt Hartmannsdorf "20 years of art in the village courtyard".
2000 Kornberg Castle, Expo 2000; Salzburg, Altnöder Gallery "Flower Power"; Graz, Schafschetzy Gallery "FLOWER:ART:SHOW";
Vienna, MAK, Art Vienna with Gallery Schafschetzy, Graz
2001 Leoben, LKH "Art in the Hospital
2002 Graz, Forum Stadtpark "Graz intern"; Mannheim, Kunstverein, Galleria Fausto Panetta
2004 Mannheim, Galleria Fausto Panetta; Vienna, Galerie Himmelporte "schön still"; Schloss Herberstein, "The World of Silent Things"; Graz, Galerie Schafschetzy "Land in Sight"
2006 Frankfurt/Main, European Central Bank "Insights"; Fehring, Gerberhaus "Painting in Styria
2008 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery "An Original from...(I)"
2012 Fürstenfeld, Galerie Gölles "An Original from...(II)"; Graz, Galerie Schafschetzy "6 Artists of the Gallery"
2013 Graz, Schafschetzy Gallery (with Kodritsch, Schnur, Straznicky)
2014 Vienna, Art Austria at the Leopold Museum (Galerie Gölles)
2015 Vienna Art Austria at the Leopold Museum (Galerie Gölles); Graz, Galerie Schafschetzy, "PastArte"; Vienna, Haus Wittgenstein, "Hotel Existenz"; Vienna, Vienna Fair (Galerie Gölles)
Graz, Neue Galerie Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum Graz, "Landschaft: Transformation einer Idee" (Landscape: Transformation of an Idea)
2016 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "An Original from ... (IV)"
2017 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "An Original from ... (V)"
2018 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "47° North 16° East".
2019 Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "Deborah Sengl | Wolfgang Wiedner"
2020 Fehring, Gerberhaus, "The Styrian Breadth III
2020-21 Fürstenfeld, Fürstenfeld, Gölles Gallery, "An Original by ... (VII)"