Christian Rothwangl 

*1993 in Bruck an der Mur, AT

2013-20 Academy of fine Arts Vienna, AT

2017 Slade School of Fine Art London, GB

2019/20 ASA Stipenium HfBK Hamburg, GER

lives and works in Vienna, AT

Selected Exhibitions

2023

Vienna Art Week Open Studio Days (upcoming), November 2023, Studio Eggerthgasse, 1060 Wien (AT)

Parallel Vienna (upcoming), Otto-Wagner-Areal, Wien (AT), Solopräsentation mit Galerie Krinzinger, September 2023

SOART Millstättersee Residency

Tutti Frutti, Galerie Suppan, Wien (AT), Juli-September 2023, Gruppenausstellung mit Julia Brennacher, Dénesh Ghyczy, Markus Huemer, Hildegard Joos, Merlin Kratky, Karo Kuchar, Laura Limbourg, Michael Ornauer, Florentina Pakosta, Christian Rothwangl, Hans Staudacher, Max Weiss

Galerie Krinzinger at ART BASEL, Basel (CH) Booth L19, Kabinett, Halle 2.1, Juni 2023

AIR 2022, Galerie Krinzinger Schottenfeld, Schottenfeldgasse, Wien (AT), März - April 2023, Gruppenausstellung mit Đanino Božić, Igor Grubić, Tina Gverović, Radhika Khimji, Ulrike Lienbacher, Christian Rothwangl, Felix Schellhorn, Erik Schmidt, Dominika Trapp, Marcelo Viquez, kuratiert von Dr. Ursula Krinzinger

Memory Clouds Kollektiv Kaorle, Wien (AT), Februar 2023, Gruppenausstellung mit Ju Aichinger, Maria Belova, Rudolf Froech, Ines Kaufmann, Philipp Pess, Christian Rothwangl, Nico Schleicher, kuratiert von Ines Kaufmann

Fallen forms Essingers Artclub, Mödling (AT), Gruppenausstellung mit Mathias Hanin, Michael Kienzer, Milan Mladenovic, Paul Wagner, kuratiert von Florentina Welley

2022

Residency Galerie Krinzinger, Petömyhályfa (HU)

When painting kicks in Galerie Suppan, Juni - August 2022, Wien (AT), Gruppenausstellung mit Dénesh Ghyczy, Georg Haberler, Markus Huemer, Laura Limbourg, Michael Ornauer, Rade Petrasevic, Kathrin Isabell Rhomberg, Christian Rothwangl

Sommerausstellung Sammlung Urban, Waidhofen/ Ybbs (AT), Juni - August 2022, Gruppenausstellung

2021

Ankauf durch das Kupferstichkabinett Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien (AT)

Unter Tausend Galerie Schloss Parz, Dezember 2021, Grießkirchen, Ober-österreich (AT), Gruppenausstellung

Stable Friends Never at Home Vienna, Oktober 2021, Wien (AT), Gruppen-ausstellung mit Adrian Schachter, Alexia Mavroleon, Alina Birkner, Baldassarre Mario, Christian Rothwangl, Emilia Auersperg, Gianna Dispenza, King Rhomberg, Lucien Smith, Maia Twombly, Max Henry, Michael Fanta, Patrick Salutt, Sofia Yeganeh, Tamuna Sirbiladze, Thomas Rhube und Vera Klimentyeva

Donkey balancing on a tennis ball, WAF (Wiener Art Foundation) Einzelausstellung, kuratiert von Lisa Jaeger und Philipp Pess

2020

Nodepressionroom loves Vienna München (DE), Gruppenausstellung mit Isabel Pfersmann, Raúl I. Lima und Christian Rothwangl

Ordnung Ruhe Überfluss Parcours Abschlussarbeiten, Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien (AT)

Intermezzo-Summertime Galerie Jünger Wien (AT), Juli 2020 Gruppenausstellung

Rausproject Vol. 2, outdoor exhibition during lockdown, Hamburg (DE), August 2020

satellite II Galerie Martin Janda at Hochhaus Herrengasse, Wien (AT),  Februar 2020, Gruppenausstellung mit Hugo Canoilas, Melanie Ebenhoch, Werner Feiersinger, Katharina Schilling, Rainer Spangl

2019

25 Jahre Jünger, Galerie Jünger Wien (AT), November 2019, Gruppenausstellung

ASA Open Studios, Hfbk Hamburg, Hamburg (DE), November 2019, Gruppenausstellung

Parallel Vienna mit Galerie Jünger, Wien (AT), Karin Ferrari & Christian Rothwangl

Kick on #2, Kunstbureau Wien (AT),  Violetta Ehnsperg, Gelitin, Christian Rothwangl

Über das Neue/ On the New, Junge Szenen in Wien / Young Scenes in Vienna, Belvedere 21, Wien (AT) mit One Mess Gallery Collective

2018

Vom Weitschweifen, Gunter Damisch und ehemalige Studierende, Galerie Schloss Parz, Grießkirchen (AT), Gruppenausstellung

2017

Telling stories, tracing fragments, Hollerei Galerie Wien, Gruppenausstellung

2016

Galerie Gaudens Pedit, Kitzbühel (AT), Gruppenausstellung

Make it funny, since I ́m not funny at all, Klasse Judith Huemer and friends, One Mess Gallery Vienna (AT)

Gruppe 1, Das Manfred, Wien (AT), temporärer Ausstellungsraum der Klasse für Grafik

2015

Ausstellung der Nominierten zum Walter Koschatzky Preis, Mumok Hofstallungen, Wien (AT)

Ausstellung der Anerkennungspreisträger, Roter Teppich für Junge Kunst, Künstlerhaus  Wien (AT)

Clair Deuticke, exhibition text, Gallery Krinzinger Schottenfeld, March 2023:

Christian Rothwangl (born 1993, Bruck an der Mur, Austria) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Professor Gunther Damisch and Christian Schwarzwald at the Slade School of Fine Art London, as well as the HFBK Hamburg with Jutta Koether, in behalf of the ASA stipend. The artist lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Rothwangl's new series of works begun during the residency in Petömyhályfa (HU), shows large-format canvas paintings and a collection of drawings that deal with themes from queer culture and human relationships by deconstructing common orders. The drawings, created on the basis of instinctive gestures, demonstrate the starting point of the artist’s work. He partially uses them as a study for painting on canvas, at the same time they represent an independent group of works that continues narrative strands begun, some of which correspond with the large formats. Individual motifs that oscillate between figuration and abstraction are taken up and further processed on the canvases. In doing so, the artist extracts from a pool of recurring, ambiguous forms as well as live models, which inspire various associations but elude clear classification.

Some of the protagonists of the works shown in the exhibition are figures that appear to be mythical creatures, whose interaction suggests narrative subjects. A recurring motif is that of bodies interacting with each other, with the head of a horse instead of a human head. At the sight of these figures, which seem to have sprung from a fantasy world, the boundaries between reality and mysticism, between truth and illusion, become blurred. Through his works, the artist creates a mystical unreality that raises questions, provokes assumptions and stimulates the viewer to spin various narratives.

Another focus lies on the exuberant colour information, which assumes increasing importance in the artist's works. Like the recurring forms, some of which are reminiscent of ornamentation, flowing veils and bands of colour deconstruct spatial regularities and blur foreground, middle ground and background. The application of paint is characterised by a permeability that has established itself as the artist's personal signature and which he achieves by means of a specially developed technical refinement. The works are created through a process of constant overpainting and washing out of wet paint, which achieves the aforementioned permeability of the colours. The processual nature of the works is made clear, among other things, by seemingly unfinished elements, which allow for an open reading of the works and invite the viewer to make a variety of different thought connections.

Text by Claire Deuticke

Rothwangl's selected exhibitions include: Fallen forms, Groupshow, Essinger Haus, Mödling (2022), Residency Galerie Krinzinger, Petömyhályfa, HU (2022), When painting kicks in, Groupshow, Galerie Suppan, Vienna (2022), Stable friends, Vienna Art Week, Groupshow, Vienna (2021), Donkey balancing on a Tennis Ball, Solo show, WAF Gallery Vienna (2021), Nodepressionroom loves Vienna, Groupshow, Munic (2020) Rausprojekt Vol. 2, Groupshow, Hamburg (2020), satellite II at Hochhaus Herrengasse, Groupshow with Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna (2020), ASA Open Studios, Hfbk Hamburg (2019), Parallel Vienna, Karin Ferrari & Christian Rothwangl with Galerie Juenger (2019), Über das Neue/ On the New, Junge Szenen in Wien / Young Scenes in Vienna, Belvedere 21 Vienna (2019)

Paula Watzl about the work of Christian Rothwangl, 2023:

Christian Rothwangl

According to Francis Bacon, the artist has only one job - to deepen the mystery. He succeeds best with two means - irrationality and chance, because anything else, according to Bacon, would degenerate painting into mere illustration. Christian Rothwangl, however, not only knows how to use these two, but takes them even further. The experienced, the read and the dreamt are condensed into serial narratives. The reading direction is not necessarily determined by the content, but rather by recurring forms and archetypes. Now and then the artist appears among them in a self-reflective manner, only to get lost again in the mix of figures. Nothing is overly clear; everything is a suggestion with multiple meanings. They become readable through the series that relate them to each other. It is always groups in which Rothwangl thinks and which define themselves for the outsider not least also through their own worlds of color. Christian Rothwangl works in ink. It is one of the most traditional forms of color - colored pigment mixed with binder - but Rothwangl thinks nothing of tradition. He dissolves the ink layer by layer in water baths and makes it an accomplice to achieve what is actually impossible in painting: chance becomes a co-author. Layer by layer, the paint builds itself up into a carpet, a stage for the events. It breaks open, covers up, blinks through the layers. In Rothwangl's work, color is, loosely based on Hermann Hesse, "obstinacy that creates fun". Carried by the color literary figures celebrate parties on canvas or paper together with Ikea stuffed animals, the outcome of which seems open. The chains of associations that the artist pokes at with his brush are numerous. Sometimes infantile, then again mythological, here and there everyday human and thereby also repeatedly sexual. The many strands of thought are held together in the frame. Rothwangl always pays special attention to the outermost part of the picture; it becomes a window frame into another world. A universe in which all the regularities of the actual reality from which the pictorial ideas originate are thrown overboard, abstraction and figuration dissolve into one another, and rushing chaos coexists with profound calm. Christian Rothwangl works out his motifs in countless sketches, quickly scribbled diaries then become precisely elaborated pictorial bodies whose titles suggest that there is always much more at stake than what the viewer may grasp. A delightful game.

Christian Rothwangl, who was born in 1993 in the Styrian town of Bruck an der Mur, studied not only in the classes of Gunther Damisch and Christian Schwarzwald at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but also at the HFBK Hamburg with Jutta Koether and at the Slade School of Fine Art London. Already in 2019, the Vienna-based artist was part of the Belvedere 21 selection "On the New", followed by numerous solo and group exhibitions including 2023 at Krinzinger Schottenfeld.

Paula Watzl, July 2023

Miriam Stoney, exhibition text, donkey blancing on a tennis ball, WAF Gallery 2020

Christian Rothwangl

Everything you need to know, right now, enclosed in an aspect ratio of one to the square root of two: 210 by 297 millimetres. Christian Rothwangl begins with reams of blank A4 sheets and a limited selection of pigmented ink washes. He generates multitudes of sketches, in which abstraction appears as an intimate tussle between figures of naturalistic familiarity – the landscape, the hand, the donkey – and the fluid medium. Bound up in their standardised, A4 format, the resulting images are the crystallisations of a habit: the productive nonconscious, crystal formation, the artist’s own body, slow training and imitation, the creative in the technical, the machinic in the creative.

In the transposition from paper to canvas, Christian retains the initial compositions and imagery as blueprints for an expanded, painterly production. The process by which he re-makes his sketches on another surface is almost mechanical; he describes himself as his own assistant. First, he draws out dark frames around the picture-planes-to-be, which are then primed for painting. The stretched canvas is thus re-formed into a Träger of Bildträgern, to become a mise en short-circuited abyme that always loops back to Christian’s original ink sketches. And yet, this labour of re-making is also a dynamic of re-interpretation. And like the best literary translations, which cannot be judged according to some tired, heteronormative notion of ‘fidelity’, Christian’s paintings are infused with intimacy for their subject matter – they recite, in their own terms, dreams mumbled into the pillowcase after a long and restless night.

The reverie takes off again, just above our eyelines: tracing a halo over our heads, following an interminable assembly line, or perhaps even unfolding a narrative, like a classical frieze on the interior walls of a great temple. The lines that Christian re-creates in acrylic paint have to be insistent if they will ever get their point to us, down here. The Tusche washes, however, seem to disperse, exposing one another to our scattered gaze. The interplay of lines with these unsettled surfaces is another example of the recursivity with which the works find their way: looping mechanical processes of non-mechanical re-production; poetic communication through the mute standardisation of the Deutsches Institut für Normung; abstracting the figurative and figuring the abstract. In his work (as his own assistant), Christian performs contradictions that disrupt binaries in ways neither positive nor negative. There is no sublimation, only complication, and the result would lead me to believe that differentiation through re-iteration is the only worthwhile feedback, in the end.

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