Nick Oberthaler
No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style

7 August – 12 September 2015

The fact that Oberthaler’s geometric abstraction functions as contemporary art is due to a number of strategies the
artist employs in the realization of his work that keeps it from merely perpetuating a historically established style.
One of these strategies involves designing tables, paravents, curtains, partitions and vitrines in an
approach adopted from the critical context-art of the 90s. His wall painting at Bianca D’Alessandro in Copenhagen,
which takes its colour from the facade of the building housing the gallery, is perhaps the most
overt coupling of painting and context-art in Oberthaler’s work.

Mirrors resurface time and again among the materials, stemming from an interest in contextual concerns – mirrors not
only reflect but also, in certain cases, distort. A further strategy for contextualising abstraction is the artist’s use
of representational images. Oberthaler uses borrowed images primarily from magazines and/or online sources, and prints
them in grid format on aluminium panels. The arrangements are reminiscent of the work of Andy Warhol and Peter Roehr. Roehr,
who died in 1968 aged only 23, assembled collages of advertising material in grid format, sizing the selections so that the images
remained intact, and did not assume an abstracted pattern. Oberthaler’s figurative elements are selected not only by
proportion, but also for their high light/shade contrast, rendering them capable of achieving a much more abstract quality.

In terms of surface, Oberthaler’s painted and printed works are almost indistinguishable. The aluminium is painted with a very smooth, polished primer, with inevitable traces from processes such as masking resulting in sharply delineated shapes. Oberthaler not only references representational images as the dominant visual form of today (and using a concreteness very specific to the time of his artistic beginnings),
even his paintings, which often look printed, always stay at least in clear sight/reach of contemporary printing techniques. Thus some
works call to mind pixelated computer graphics or the raster lines of vacuum tube monitors, which are now relegated to the technological past.

For his exhibition at Bianca D’Alessandro he borrows John Cage’s declaration of independence
at the occasion of a Robert Rauschenberg exhibition in 1953, “No Subject, No image, No taste…” referring to all transcendentalism, and much more than just an exhibition title. The assertion of a reality external to the image, Oberthaler seems to be saying, can no longer be a discursive category in post-modernism.

Christoph Bruckner

Nick Oberthaler (Bad Ischl/Austria, 1981) lives and works in Vienna. Recent solo shows include Pièce Dérivée, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2015); Calculated Reserve (Cur. Pier Paolo Pancotto), Museo Hendrik C. Andersen/Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna, Roma (2014); The blackbird must be flying (together with Thomas Julier), Centre d’art bastille/CAB, Grenoble (2015); Eventuality of an attempt,
KIOSK, Gent (2013);  Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna (2012) and
Galerie Martin van Zomeren, Amsterdam (2012). Group shows (selection): Rideaux/BLINDS (Cur. Marie de Brugerolle), Institut d’Art Contemporain/FRAC Rhône-Alpes, Villeurbanne/Lyon (2015); Ã–konomie der Aufmerksamkeit, Kunsthalle Vienna (2014); Vers une hypothèse (Cur. Andrea Rodriguez Novoa), Francheville, CAC Fort du Bruissin/Programme Résonance – XII Biennale de Lyon, Lyon (2013); Die Sammlung # 4, 21er-Haus / Belvedere Vienna (2013); De leur temps 4: Nantes, Centre d’art contemporain Le Hangar, Nantes (2013); Minimal Myth (Cur. Francesco Stocchi), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2012).

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

Untitled (Propositions), 2015. Offset-print on blueback paper, 59,4 x 42 cm. Edition of 250 / not numbered

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

Untitled (Grid), 2015. Protection foil, ink and matte varnish on aluminium, 180 x 100 cm

Untitled (Grid), 2015. Protection foil, ink and matte varnish on aluminium, 180 x 100 cm (detail)

Untitled (Thorvaldsen/The disquieting muses), 2015. Primer, gesso and acrylic on aluminium. 180 x 100 cm

Untitled (Thorvaldsen/The disquieting muses), 2015. Primer, gesso and acrylic on aluminium. 180 x 100 cm (detail)

Untitled (Blind/The Decay), 2015. UV-print on aluminium,180 x 100 cm

Untitled (Blind/The Decay), 2015. UV-print on aluminium,180 x 100 cm (detail)

Untitled (NoNoNoNoNoNo), 2015. Primer, gesso, acrylic and offset-print on aluminium, h180 x 100 cm

Untitled (NoNoNoNoNoNo), 2015. Primer, gesso, acrylic and offset-print on aluminium, h180 x 100 cm (detail)

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

Untitled (for R.R. / I). Aludibond mirrors with protection foil, 1k-glue and dust on black MDF, 2015. 131 x 79 cm

Untitled (for R.R. / I). Aludibond mirrors with protection foil, 1k-glue and dust on black MDF, 2015. 131 x 79 cm

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

Untitled (for R.R. / I). Aludibond mirrors with protection foil, 1k-glue and dust on black MDF, 2015. 131 x 79 cm (detail)

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

No Subject No Image No Taste No Matter No Grace No Style, 2015. Installation view

Untitled I- VIII (Cph). Work on paper, framed, 2015. Mixed media, dimensions variable. 60 x 42 cm (frame)

Untitled I – VIII (Cph). Work on paper, framed, 2015. Mixed media, dimensions variable. 60 x 42 cm (frame)

Untitled I – VIII (Cph). Work on paper, framed, 2015. Mixed media, dimensions variable. 60 x 42 cm (frame)

Untitled I – VIII (Cph). Work on paper, framed, 2015. Mixed media, dimensions variable. 60 x 42 cm (frame)

Untitled I – VIII (Cph). Work on paper, framed, 2015. Mixed media, dimensions variable. 60 x 42 cm (frame)

Untitled I – VIII (Cph). Work on paper, framed, 2015. Mixed media, dimensions variable. 60 x 42 cm (frame)

Photo: Jan Sondergaaard

Thank you to Bundeskanzleramt Österreich,
Austrian Embassy Copenhagen and Absolut Vodka

Frederiksholms Kanal 28A  1220 Copenhagen K  +45 22994301 info@biancadalessandro.com

Gallery hours  Tuesday – Friday 12 noon – 6 pm  Saturday 12 noon – 3 pm