Galerie ADLER featuring Klaus Wanker

Klaus Wanker - Press release

Klaus Wanker
"Illusion Unlimited"
Painting

January 19th - March 17th 2007
opening reception: Friday, January 19th, 7 pm

Frankfurt am Main, January 2007
On January 19, 2007, Galerie Adler, in its gallery space in Frankfurt am Main, will open the exhibition Illusion Unlimited with the Austrian artist Klaus Wanker (*1969, Graz).

In his early works, it is usually anonymous young people, whom Klaus Wanker represents in the poses familiar from the models of an advertising industry that operates worldwide. He portrays young people in wicked gear, whose appearance is oriented towards those media models who symbolise the dream of a beautiful and successful life in the glossy magazines. The desire to be a star is fulfilled in his pictures.
In these works, the artist focused on the persons and their faces, with the environment downgraded to second-rate status and usually at best imprecisely defined. The yearnings and dreams of his youthful ‘stars’ were detached from time and location.

In the more recent paintings, not any more anonymous people but professional models are shown, as the representatives of the young. Their personality is being formed by the advertising industry. In order to demonstrate this manipulation, advertising elements are, like in collages, composed and interpreted anew. The works are overlaid with barely legible scripts (representing the titles of the works). Wanker is using an approach similar to that of the subliminal advertising messages aimed at reaching the viewer’s subconscious without being obtrusive.

In his current work, the models are positioned in front of urban scenery. High-rise façades, underground rail stations and bleak urban landscapes are the scenarios in which they pose for the viewer. They look blasé, detached yet tinged with sadness. The beautiful world of appearances has left them behind all on their lonesome. Many of the new paintings are in monochrome colours, they recall the bleak ambience of the Film Noir, in which the city embodies the root of all evil.

In addition to the images of human beings, it is the requisites of the consumer and media worlds, the brand-name articles that are part of Wanker’s œuvre. Individual sneakers are blown up to the monstrous size of two by three metres and stylised into fetish ware, consumer icons out of all proportion. In contrast to the ethereal-looking images of his imaginary stars, his sneakers are bursting with colourful reality. Praying benches, real ones, installed in front of them exaggerate the products, support the message of the artist.

Believe in me, 2006, Oil on styrofoam, 175 x 280 cm

Klaus Wanker
"Here we go again"
Painting

January, 21st - April, 2nd 2005
opening reception: Friday, January, 21st, 7 pm

Frankfurt am Main, December 2004
Klaus Wanker stages young people, in their street wear and their style: colourful, cool, precise.

They see themselves as models and stars from the worlds of advertising, of show, of video-clips in the music channels. They flee from reality into the glamour of Imaginary Stardom. They live in the big cities, being alone, frail, hypersensitive. They long for love and, at the same time, want to be tough and strong - and cool. Therefore they resort to style, hide behind a mask.

In Imaginary Stardom they feel safe; there they present themselves as VIPs. With their street wear, sun glasses, sneakers and plastic bags, with the symbolism of brands and logos, labels and badges they show up as dream persons and communicate their attitudes and messages - by slogans with and without meaning on their T-shirts, which appear like graffiti on the walls of subway tubes.

Men and women, the stars of Imaginary Stardom, are products of the media, the fashion and beauty industries; bar-codes are identifying the individuals. Klaus Wanker lets his persons come across emotionless, static, cool. With the smooth surfaces of the paintings he freezes the faces of youth.

In the exhibition "Here We Go Again" Gallery Adler presents the newest works by Klaus Wanker. The artist pursues his topic of Imaginary Stardom, enhancing the coolness of the persons by monochrome painting. Slogans in the background of some of the new works remind one of the surreptitious advertisements in Hollywood motion pictures.

Vernissage
Friday, January 21, 2005, 7 - 11 pm

Exhibition Dates
January 21 - April 2, 2005

Opening hours
Tue, Wed 3-6pm, Thu, Fri 12-7pm
Sa 11am-3pm and upon appointment

untitled, 2004, oil on canvas