“Collaging is a non-linear process. We build something new every day without gaining anything new. It?s a new way of thinking that we have learned.? Robert Adrian X made this way of thinking his manner of practicing art. The artist, born 1935 in Toronto, Canada, who has been living in Vienna since 1972, reassembles the most diverse cultural symbols in his work, articulating meanings between the lines which he thus makes stand for themselves.
“It?s all about this fuzzy territory between different media, it?s about the vanishing of demarcating definitions.? Quotes from classical modernity, advertising, and media technology or arms-industry artifacts are placed in new, often flowing-spatial contexts, with playful, ambiguous, and sometimes also menacing effects.
The Kunsthalle Wien will be showing the artist?s first comprehensive retrospective in Europe. Robert Adrian X?s diverse work ranges from analytical painting in the 1970s, conceptual photography, small sculptures and model construction to light and sound installations and telecommunications projects in the public and media spheres.
Curator: Lucas Gehrmann