Jakob Gasteiger
Jakob Gasteiger, was born in Salzburg in 1953 and now lives in Vienna and the Weinviertel. The artist attended the University of Music and Performing Arts in Salzburg from 1970 to 1974. In 1990, he received the Faistauer Prize for Painting and in 2017, the Appreciation Award of the Visual Arts for the Province of Lower Austria. In 2019, Gasteiger was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Province of Lower Austria. As an important representative of analytical painting the artist questions the parameters of painting and thematizes, expands and subverts boundaries of graphics, painting and sculpture. His predominantly monochrome paintings with relief-like structures are formed using an artist designed comb spatula to apply the paint. This group of works form the most extensive and best-known series by the artist.
Over his forty year career Gasteiger has held important gallery exhibitions across Austria and worldwide with international galleries including Margarete Roeder, Thaddaeus Ropac and Bechter Kastowsky. In May 2023 ‘Jakob Gasteiger : Extract’ was presented at Encounter, Lisbon in collaboration with Richeldis Fine Art. Selected institutional solo exhibitions include ‘Jakob Gasteiger : Post Radical Painting’, The Albertina, Vienna (2021), ‘Jakob Gasteiger, Works 1985 – 2015’ Salzburg Museum, Salzburg (2016) and ‘Jakob Gasteiger’ at Kunstlerhaus Bregenz, Bregenz (2012), Kunstlerhaus Wien, Vienna (2011), Nexus Kunsthaus, Vienna (2010), Landesgalerie am Oberösterreichischen Landesmuseum, Linz (2006), Kunsthalle Krems, Krems (2005), Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Rupertinum, Salzburg (2002), The Austrian Cultural Institute, New York (1992). Recent institutional group exhibitions include ‚‘Rendezvous with the Collection; Art from 1960 to Today’, Landesgalerie Niederösterreich, Krems (2022), ‘Tour of the Force – Point, Line, Colour on the Way through Austrian Art after 1945’, Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus (2021), ‘o.T.’, Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus (2020), ‘The Liaunig Collection on the Move’, Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus (2019), ‘Abstract Painting Now’, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems (2018), ‘Light, Colour, Form’, Laszlo Vass Collection, Hungary (2016), ‘Augen-Blicke’, Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus (2016),‘Near Distance’, Landesmuseum Niederösterreich, St. Pölten (2015), ‘Aspekte des Feuers’ Museum für Gegenwartskunst,Benediktinerstift Admont (2015), ‘Farbiges Grau’, Mies van der Rohe-Haus, Berlin (2013), ‘Land in Sicht!’ Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg (2013), ‘Sammlung zeitgenössischer’ Belvedere Museum, Vienna (2012), ‘Abstraction and Reality’, Museum Essl, Klosterneuburg (2011), ‚‘Painting : Process and Expansion’, MUMOK Modern Art Museum, Vienna (2010). Gasteiger’s works can be found in numerous imprtant public collections such as The Albertina, Belvedere Museum, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Kunstforum Wien, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Museum Liaunig, Museum Angerlehner, Lentos Museum, Sammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbank Wien and many more.
“When I started to occupy myself with analytical painting, I also questioned the tools to apply the paint with and
I have tried various other tools instead of the commonly used brush. I wanted “impersonal” tools, so fingers
were no option. I used timber, boards, nails or a saw-blade to work with the paint. Later I cut comb
spatulas from cardboard, I still do that today.”
