Wolfgang Lehrner – Artist Talk

Artist Talk with Cornelis van Almsick,
Wolfgang Lehrner and Jade Niklai
(In English)

CORNELIS VAN ALMSICK SATELLITE
in Cooperation with BKI, Haus Wittgenstein

Curator: Cornelis van Almsick
Text: Dajana Dorfmayr
Translation: Roman Buchta

Living the International Style by Wolfgang Lehrner (born 1980, lives and works in
Vienna) is an approach to the ambivalence encountered in modernity.
“International Style” refers to a drive in classic modernist architecture, which
originated in Europe in 1922 and would later be found throughout the world. The
term was initially used as a title for a 1932-exhibition at MoMA and for the
successive publication The International Style: Architecture since 1922, and it
describes an internationalized form of architecture de-contextualized from the
locale.

Such a clarity-oriented realignment for man simultaneously implies gain and
loss. The dichotomy of modernity’s achievements lies at the heart of this discrete
exploration. The works of this series can be ascribed to the 3 aspects Living /
International / Style and aim at grasping the moment of transition. A continuous
tightrope ride along the small boundary between freedom and uprooting, mass
and individual, openness and translucency.

In the sense of this border-crossing, the Haus Wittgenstein (built 1925-1928 by
Ludwig Wittgenstein in cooperation with Paul Engelmann) is, to say the least,
exemplary. Its aesthetics are simple and sublime, colossal and weightless, translucent
and hermetic, pure and elaborate. Wittgenstein’s philosophical and
architectural project of isolating the “Speakable from the Ineffable” allows the
spectator to depart from zero into experiencing both extremes.

Kindly supported by
Weingut Weninger | Weinhof Uibel | USB Looper | Jan Tabor | Blood Mountain