Gerlind Zeilner - Two Bars

Curated by Sabine Kienzer

Think of your favourite drinking establishment. Does it have a smooth mahogany bar and the best dirty martini this side of the Atlantic? Or are the drinks cheap, the lights low and the staff non-judgemental?

Since the popularisation of bohemian lifestyles in the mid 19th Century, bars have offered refuge to artists who wanted to live outside of societal conventions. After all, what better way to show that you aren?t a member of the much-ridiculed petit bourgeois than getting wasted and starting a bar-brawl? But more than just an arena to act out in, bars have historically been places for artists to meet and spend time with each other, seemingly as important to the creation of a ?scene? as a city?s galleries and museums.

In the vein of artists like Nicole Eisenman, Gerlind Zeilner takes on the genre of bar paintings in her new solo exhibition at fAN Kunstverein. Taken from in situ drawings in bars, she chooses spaces that feature wall decorations or small statues to translate into scenes in her paintings. Though her scene choice and with her characteristic use of colour, which prioritises the ?idea? of colour rather than faithfully transcribing the situation at hand, Zeilner investigates the role images play in our daily lives.
Text: Chloe Stead, Aug 2017

Opening: Wed, 6.9.2017, 19:00
Exhibition: 7.9.?15.9.2017
by appointment. M +43 699 1161 5211