Norbert Trummer
Untitled (1985)

Dates
20.9.2024–16.2.2025

Location
Neue Galerie Graz, Graz

Part of
Horror Patriae: Exhibition

A very early painting by Norbert Trummer (born 1962, Leibnitz, Austria, lives in Vienna), then a student of Arnulf Rainer (born 1929), remains an eccentric exception in his work. Rebelling against the spiritual authority and stylistic routine of abstract painting, Trummer indulged in fantasies about fairy-tale pirates, paradise islands, and their alluring wild inhabitants. These fantasies are not without (conscious or unconscious) references to the art historical canon, as if any real artist should have a bit of Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) in him. Gauguin’s Tahitian women—who, unlike Trummer’s, are real, vulnerable, and often abused—haunt this seemingly unproblematic and light picture by a young artist of the 1980s, when European culture was still largely oblivious to the dark implications of its colonial past.

Retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective