Galerie Hubert Winter at ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair 2015

Galerie Hubert Winter is pleased to present works by Marcia Hafif (*1929 in Pomona, California) and Tina Lechner (*1981 in St. Pölten, Austria) for the 1+1 Projects. Despite that both artists are working in two different medias and being of different age, there is a fundamental question that unites their artistic practice: Through questioning painting and photography individually they deal not only with the future of the medium but also give new and refreshing results. MARCIA HAFIF Since the early 1970s, Marcia Hafif´s works pick up the tradition of a fundamental analysis of painting which positions them as a reaction to Minimal Art and establish a part of a theory in art. Under the programmatic title “Inventory” Marcia Hafif lists her oeuvre in series of works in the approximate order they appeared. Ink Drawing “Using a small sable brush and black ink, diluted with different amounts of water producing different grays or blacks, and in some cases beginning in the center of the page working out to the edges, I covered the whole sheet of paper left to right and top to bottom with brush strokes. In another series I retained the white of the paper using brush strokes as in calligraphy to produce a spontaneous image.” Enamel on Wood „I did one French Painting on wood that led me to further investigate wooden supports. Answering the question, "What is a painting," in its most material aspect, I thought it is a box with paint applied on its front surface. I then constructed wooden boxes or flat wooden supports spaced from the wall which I painted with enamel, household enamel or sign painting paint, then enamel paint found in shops where I worked: in Munich, Düsseldorf, London and Paris.“ Red Painting „The Red Painting came out of the Oil Studies/Mass Tone, middle sized and larger, painted with powdered pigment hand-ground on a glass plate using a glass muller. During an uninterrupted time and using a small brush, 3/4", I applied the paint in my usual way: left to right and top to bottom. The colors were various reds: Paliogen Maroon, Permanent Red, Irgazine Ruby, Alizarin Crimson, but also Heliogen Blue and Indian Yellow.“ Splash Painting „On a larger format the scumble process continued with a pure color, blue or red, orange or green covered with a white tint. Seeing photographic reproductions of false fresco painted by Fra Angelico and noting that he must have thrown paint at the wall as he finished, I had a desire to do that. After time, contemplation and practice, I threw paint at the vertical center of each canvas.“ TINA LECHNER In her first series Topography of Light Tina Lechner explores the relationship between photography and sculpture and the effects that arise in the translation between the two mediums, a common interest of artists since photography was invented. In order to reduce the tension between the two-dimensional and the illusion of space, Tina Lechner focuses on the void – a blank space achieved by a radical reduction of forms and colors in her unique self-developed analogue photographs. The reduction of portrait photography to a geometrical configuration generated by light and shadows, edges and interfaces maintains the equilibrium between a technically perfect effigy and a non-representational topography. Tina Lechner: “Central to my work in Topography of Light is the void - a blank space achieved by a radical reduction of forms and colours. Although the portraits seem to be settled they are shattered by the immanent dynamic of costumes made of paper. My aim in using these means is to explore the liminal zone between what is real and what is disconnected. In this sphere the pictures can be relieved from the temporal actuality usually employed by portrait photography.“ (2014)