Klaus Wanker painting entitled: "Can you feel the disgusting, rotten smell of flatness and loneliness?" 2006
ARTIST STATEMENT:
On January 19, 2007, Galerie Adler, in its gallery space in Frankfurt am Main, will open the exhibition Illusion Unlimited with the Austrian artist Klaus Wanker (*1969, Graz).
In his early works, it is usually anonymous young people, whom Klaus Wanker represents in the poses familiar from the models of an advertising industry that operates worldwide. He portrays young people in wicked gear, whose appearance is oriented towards those media models who symbolise the dream of a beautiful and successful life in the glossy magazines. The desire to be a star is fulfilled in his pictures.
In these works, the artist focused on the persons and their faces, with the environment downgraded to second-rate status and usually at best imprecisely defined. The yearnings and dreams of his youthful ‘stars’ were detached from time and location.
In the more recent paintings, not any more anonymous people but professional models are shown, as the representatives of the young. Their personality is being formed by the advertising industry. In order to demonstrate this manipulation, advertising elements are, like in collages, composed and interpreted anew. The works are overlaid with barely legible scripts (representing the titles of the works). Wanker is using an approach similar to that of the subliminal advertising messages aimed at reaching the viewer’s subconscious without being obtrusive.
In his current work, the models are positioned in front of urban scenery. High-rise façades, underground rail stations and bleak urban landscapes are the scenarios in which they pose for the viewer. They look blasé, detached yet tinged with sadness. The beautiful world of appearances has left them behind all on their lonesome. Many of the new paintings are in monochrome colours, they recall the bleak ambience of the Film Noir, in which the city embodies the root of all evil.
In addition to the images of human beings, it is the requisites of the consumer and media worlds, the brand-name articles that are part of Wanker’s œuvre. Individual sneakers are blown up to the monstrous size of two by three metres and stylised into fetish ware, consumer icons out of all proportion. In contrast to the ethereal-looking images of his imaginary stars, his sneakers are bursting with colourful reality. Praying benches, real ones, installed in front of them exaggerate the products, support the message of the artist.
