Florian Pumhösl
Relief (Sutnar)
Artist
Florian Pumhösl
(1971, Wien), Austrian
Original Title
Relief (Sutnar)
Date2010
Mediumperspex wall-mounted display case, 1934 edition of Svět nic neví, designed by Ladislav Sutnar, mounted on panel upholstered in black buckram fabric
Dimensions91,5 × 121,5 × 10,5 cm
Classificationssculpture
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionAustrian artist Florian Pumhösl’s practice includes painting, photography, film, installations, and graphic art. His works can be understood as a personal reflection on the legacy of modernism and its aesthetic values, often incorporating authentic materials from modernist times. He explores both the idealist and materialist dimensions of modernism and its spiritual, transcendental, and utopian features, which reflect various political and social contexts, forming a mosaic of our cultural memory. Pumhösl’s work thus represents a constellation of historic references encoded in an ostensibly formal visual language. He views modernism as an unfinished and still relevant force which was abandoned due to the upheaval of human values in the mid-20th century. The visual abstraction of his paintings, films, and installations is rooted in specific archival sources such as avantgarde typography, cartography, and Latin American textiles. Pumhösl also engages with the discourse of the modernist presentation of artworks. His work employs a seemingly homogenous visual language which reveals contrasting historical contexts. The aim of Pumhösl’s works is to reveal the contradictory elements of the modernist legacy with its promises of progress and enlightenment through a revision of the Western canon, which is currently being momentously affected by manifold processes stemming from globalization.
Dating from 2010, this relief placed on a black background within a transparent showcase comprises the typographic layouts of two book covers designed by Czech typographer and avantgarde artist Ladislav Sutnar. The incorporation and presentation of historical content such as books and printed materials is an essential component of Pumhösl’s artistic practice. Presenting them in showcases helps him emphasize their status as objects which used to be elements of novel mass communication but currently represent valuable collector’s items and sources for academic research. Both book covers are defined by reductive aesthetics which shape an abstract composition within which the titles of the books appear (Daumier Speaks to Us and The World Knows Nothing). Pumhösl uses their presentation to thematize the contrast between the content of these books—which spoke to a common, simplistic taste—and their progressive visual presentation.
Florian Pumhösl (*1974, Vienna) studied at the Höhere Grafische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsantalt in Vienna from 1989 to 1991 and at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1989 to 1997. His work has featured in group exhibitions at institutions such as Vienna’s mumok (2011) and the Art Institute of Chicago (2012) as well as at Documenta 12 (2007) and at the São Paulo Biennial (2006). He has received several awards such as the Otto-Mauer-Preis, the CENTRAL-Kunstpreis, the Hilde-Goldschmidt-Preis, and the Wilfried-Skreiner-Preis, as well as the Schindler Schindler Scholarship at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles.
Dating from 2010, this relief placed on a black background within a transparent showcase comprises the typographic layouts of two book covers designed by Czech typographer and avantgarde artist Ladislav Sutnar. The incorporation and presentation of historical content such as books and printed materials is an essential component of Pumhösl’s artistic practice. Presenting them in showcases helps him emphasize their status as objects which used to be elements of novel mass communication but currently represent valuable collector’s items and sources for academic research. Both book covers are defined by reductive aesthetics which shape an abstract composition within which the titles of the books appear (Daumier Speaks to Us and The World Knows Nothing). Pumhösl uses their presentation to thematize the contrast between the content of these books—which spoke to a common, simplistic taste—and their progressive visual presentation.
Florian Pumhösl (*1974, Vienna) studied at the Höhere Grafische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsantalt in Vienna from 1989 to 1991 and at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1989 to 1997. His work has featured in group exhibitions at institutions such as Vienna’s mumok (2011) and the Art Institute of Chicago (2012) as well as at Documenta 12 (2007) and at the São Paulo Biennial (2006). He has received several awards such as the Otto-Mauer-Preis, the CENTRAL-Kunstpreis, the Hilde-Goldschmidt-Preis, and the Wilfried-Skreiner-Preis, as well as the Schindler Schindler Scholarship at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles.
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