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July 6, 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of Kurt Kocherscheidt's birth. Galerie W&K - Wienerroither & Kohlbacher is taking this anniversary as an opportunity to show a museum exhibition dedicated to Kocherscheidt's interest in observing nature and the development of his unmistakable formal language, following the highly acclaimed 2017 show at Vienna's Palais Schönborn-Batthyány.
In 1972, the then 29-year-old artist sold almost all his belongings and embarked on a journey through South America that lasted several months. His irrepressible interest in nature unites him with other explorers and leads Kocherscheidt on his journey to Tierra del Fuego, the Chilean Atacama Desert, the Galapagos Islands and the Brazilian rainforest, among other places. He records the impressions of this journey in his notebook and with a 35mm camera, on black and white film. Leaving paint, brush and canvas behind and starting a new chapter far away from the European avant-garde had become an existential necessity for Kocherscheidt. He would later define this moment as a break with the burden of art, an escape from his profession, and an intense desire to find a new visual vocabulary for his painting. Kocherscheidt would draw from the experiences of this journey until his sudden death in 1992.
On the occasion of the artist's 80th birthday on July 6, 2023, Galerie Wienerroither & Kohlbacher presents an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by this important Austrian artist. The works presented date from 1982 to 1992, providing an insight into the late work of the artist, who died in 1992, at the age of 49. Rocks, water, stones and objects found their way into his work and at the same time provide the basis for his formal explorations. Kocherscheidt's forms gradually became more reduced. His approach to painting became a philosophical journey in which he radically questioned formalism, which would eventually lead him to his own profoundly abstract formal language, which received great attention at Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992.
In 1972, the then 29-year-old artist sold almost all his belongings and embarked on a journey through South America that lasted several months. His irrepressible interest in nature unites him with other explorers and leads Kocherscheidt on his journey to Tierra del Fuego, the Chilean Atacama Desert, the Galapagos Islands and the Brazilian rainforest, among other places. He records the impressions of this journey in his notebook and with a 35mm camera, on black and white film. Leaving paint, brush and canvas behind and starting a new chapter far away from the European avant-garde had become an existential necessity for Kocherscheidt. He would later define this moment as a break with the burden of art, an escape from his profession, and an intense desire to find a new visual vocabulary for his painting. Kocherscheidt would draw from the experiences of this journey until his sudden death in 1992.
On the occasion of the artist's 80th birthday on July 6, 2023, Galerie Wienerroither & Kohlbacher presents an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by this important Austrian artist. The works presented date from 1982 to 1992, providing an insight into the late work of the artist, who died in 1992, at the age of 49. Rocks, water, stones and objects found their way into his work and at the same time provide the basis for his formal explorations. Kocherscheidt's forms gradually became more reduced. His approach to painting became a philosophical journey in which he radically questioned formalism, which would eventually lead him to his own profoundly abstract formal language, which received great attention at Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992.
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