Bruno Gironcoli – Toni Schmale

THE ALBERTINA MODERN MUSEUM, VIENNA

The ALBERTINA MODERN is presenting a joint exhibition of the Austrian artist Bruno Gironcoli (1936-2010) and the Vienna-based sculptor Toni Schmale (b. 1980).

The starting point for this exhibition is a cycle of 155 drawings by Gironcoli, a donation from Agnes Essl. This self-contained series, created over a six-year period during the 1980s, shows the artist as we hardly know him: his unique colored pencil drawings stand unmistakably apart from Gironcoli’s more familiar oeuvre. Most delicately executed, they convey an incredible impression of three-dimensionality. More than mere sketches for future sculptures, these drawings much rather explore the latter’s possible and impossible states and purposes – independent of time and space.

In a similar way, Schmale’s imposing works, too, evoke associations with potential purposes and utilizations. It is the artist’s intention to encourage us to approach their content and meaning through our own thoughts and reflections. The titles, forms, and materials of her sculptures mostly point in different directions and suggest an activity or human interaction – an interaction which in Gironcoli’s case may lead as far as a fusion of human being and technology.

Both artistic positions combine opposites – matters familiar and imagined, artificial and animated – thus creating new carriers of meaning. The works of both elude concrete definition, unambiguous interpretation, so that viewers are eventually thrown back upon their own resources through the questions they pose with regard to the object.

The exhibition is on view at the ALBERTINA MODERN Museum from 3 April to 28 July 2024.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

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Daily | 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

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