Hotel Heureka supports the Art of Julian Khol….
….live the marriage of modern Art and the enchanting architecture of the past: art as a bridge towards people….
Hotel Heureka and the art of Julian Khol
Since its opening, Heureka Hotel has exhibited the works of the young Viennese artist in its splendid rooms and suites, which together with the designers studied themes and colors to combine modern design and the history of the Palace where forms, styles, eras and arts are composed like pieces of a mosaic, to give life to a harmonious work in which all the elements support and reinforce each other.
On the occasion of the Art Biennale, the Hotel Heureka will be happy to introduce its customers and the many art lovers in the city to an exhibition dedicated to this emerging artist.
With a private cocktail to be held on Saturday 25 May, the property of the Hotel Heureka will inaugurate the exhibition of some works by the Austrian artist Julian Khol.
Julian Khol, who in his twenties was one of the most sought-after models for Jean Paul Gaultier, Valentino and Armani, is now an internationally sought-after artist. Born in Vienna in 1979, this shooting star of the Austrian art scene produces expressively abstract, large-scale images that are exhibited both at home and abroad. In 2004 Khol began his art education at the University for Applied Arts Vienna, studying under Christian Ludwig Attersee. He left Vienna in 2007 and enrolled at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf, where he completed his degree in 2011 in Herbert Brandl’s painting master class.
“ When I was a teenager, I really became aware of how deeply audiovisual impressions are etched in my memory and how much they remain available as entire films that influence my life. I started focusing on this more intensively and conducted self – experiments during which I tried to alter these films every time I retrieved them from my memory and watched them . To change them, so to speak, through reinterpretation in such a way that the next time I accessed them they would already incorporate this new information as a given fact , as something that had actually happened.
I realized that memories change with every act of remembrance. And that they are subsequently stored in the brain as a new memory. Over the years I began to view every memory as an own, detached thought loop. The thought follows a predetermined path and this path can be actively altered.
With my sculptural work I try – among other things – to make these paths of thought visible. ”
Julian Khols latest works appear as spatial documents of the detachment from figuration that he has continuously implemented since 2015. Before this point in time his sujets were devoted to the shapes of humans, flora and fauna, which were reduced in the artistic process, fragmented and transformed into pigments.
Since 2015 the artist has refrained from these referential shapes. The puristic line that originated in the drawing has now become the extensive reference and it appears as the characteristic element of his works. Hence the line itself is not only visual in the sculpture itself, but also accessible by its definition of the three-dimensional form. Based on the line, spatial figures made of wire interact as objects with the surrounding space or are attached to a screen with which they resonate. Thereby the artist relegates to the nexus of paintings, drawings and sculptures.
The shapes of the looped wire slings do not refer to any concrete object like the gestural brushstrokes on the canvas but arise from a repertoire of shapes that Khol developed two-dimensionally. Hence the wire slings evoke the depth of the works and convey between its formal and aesthetic layers.
Fore- and Background are constantly correlating with one another, reinforced by the chromatic contrast between the wire with its wide slings and the screen underneath.
The aspect of layers is also represented in the various layers of paint on the canvas that have been applied successively in order to texturize the painting. With this procedure the artist implements the parameter of time, not only in the working process but also on an abstract basis.
Khol therefore recites theories from cognitive science to transfer mental processes like reminiscence into an artistic context. While the layers of monochrom and repetitively applied paint relate to the act of remembering overwriting an old memory, the loops of wire symbolize a terminated action that is defined by a starting and an end point.
Due to the specifics of the wire, its ability to resist and be formed, the artist is able to compact and gather parts so that the wire slings remain evidence of the artist’s impact. Khol coils the ideal timeline in form of the wire and retains it by which he also archives it. With the current series of work Khol does not only introduce new impulses to his artistic theory, but he also extends his artistic practice.
Julian Khol at Hotel Heureka – from May 26 2019
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