Gagosian Paris presents Reconstructions, a new exhibition by Rudolf Polanszky, featuring new and recent paintings and sculptures by Austrian artist. Marking the first exhibition of the artist’s work at gallery’s space in Paris, the exhibition is on view from January 16 until March 20, 2021.
ART
Freedom is a chimera in a sense, but this illusion is realized as far as is possible in art. I can do something, and you can say, “No, don’t do that, that’s wrong,” but I’ll do it anyway.
– Rudolf Polanszky
In this exhibition, the Reconstructions newly incorporate copper foil, combined with silver or deep purplish mirrored foil, recalling the rippling, reflective surfaces of the Bright Mirrors and Dark Mirrors – two paired subseries of the Reconstructions first seen in his exhibition at Gagosian New York last year.
Also on view are two recent sculptures in which Polanszky makes use of the rough-hewn edges of the same repurposed objects, manipulating strips of metal and acrylic glass into curved forms and dynamic abstractions.
A key figure in the Vienna art scene, Polanszky creates cerebral yet tactile works that embrace chance occurrence. From the early 1990s, he began experimenting in mixed-media painting with the series Reconstructions (1991–). To make these subtle compositions, he uses salvaged industrial materials such as acrylic glass, aluminum, mirrored foil, resin, silicone, and wire, decontextualizing them from their original uses and recombining them into aesthetic forms. Polanszky’s process of “ad hoc synthesis” produces works that oscillate between material constructions and symbols of subjective perception. – from Gagosian
