Christian Stock /A/

24.4.2009 - 30.8.2009

Curator: Richard Adam
The principal works of the Austrian artist Christian Stock (1961) dating from the 1980's are his "Würfelbilder” (Cube Pictures). The pictures were made of 15 x 15, 18 x 18 and 25 x 25 cm squares layered onto one another during periods of time of 3 to 10 years.

This type of painting – unlike what applies to the long painting tradition – does not provide an illusion of a cube on the canvas, but rather depicts the real cube, the object, it is its realistic representation in the proper sense of the word.

Three of the “Würfelbilder” cube pictures are on display in the gallery Galerie na mostě. Two of his pictures are still to be finished. In the “Rotes Würfelbild” (Red Cubes Picture), the artist paints simultaneously on canvas and cardboard. The cubes are numbered, dated and signed, and represent the relation between the depicted space and the painted surface.

The first “Delete” (Series) pictures, which are mostly wash paintings on canvas, date from 2000. Stock made them dipping a brush into the colour which he then spread out on the canvas. He repeated the procedure until filling the canvas in a rhythmical manner. In the Galerie na mostě installation, six major canvases will be assembled with screws into a series called “Delete Cube”, and two additional large panels will be painted on site.

The third part of Stocks work that will be displayed in Galerie na mostě is a combination of video and painting. Stock’s videos are often authentic shots of places where his exhibitions take place. He paints posters to accompany his video shots – drawing upon the old poster painting tradition – similarly to Peter Doig in his film club in Trinidad. In Stock’s posters, the names of places from the video shots are blended with the names of Hollywood film busters and cinema hits, resulting in “The Brno Code” instead of ”The Da Vinci Code” or “Brnopolis” instead of “Metropolis”, etc.