Maria Lassnig: A Painting Survey, 1950 – 2007

Beginning 16 September 2016, Hauser Wirth & Schimmel presents “Maria Lassnig. A Painting Survey, 1950 – 2007”, the first Los Angeles solo exhibition for the acclaimed late Austrian artist. Spanning work made from the 1950s to the end of the artist’s life, this survey traces Lassnig’s evolution from early experiments with abstraction to a richly inventive figuration and the refinement of her ‘body awareness’ paintings, in which she captured physical sensation as felt from within. Lassnig devoted much of her career to recording her physiological states through a direct and unflinching style, believing that ‘truth resides in the emotions produced within the physical shell.’ Pursuing her extraordinary science of the self, Lassnig rendered an oeuvre that has influenced such important younger artists as Martin Kippenberger and Paul McCarthy.

“Maria Lassnig. A Painting Survey, 1950 – 2007” will be on view through 31 December 2016. The exhibition has been organized by Peter Pakesch, Chairman of the Maria Lassnig Foundation, Vienna, and Paul Schimmel, Vice-President and Partner, Hauser Wirth & Schimmel. A major international retrospective of works by Lassnig is currently touring Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England; Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; and the National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic, through 2018. A 2017 retrospective of Lassnig’s works on paper will travel from the Albertina, Vienna, Austria to Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland.

“Maria Lassnig. A Painting Survey, 1950 – 2007” reveals the ways in which the artist drew from and challenged conventions of abstraction to create a singular figuration. Organized chronologically, the exhibition unfolds over five rooms, beginning with the early 1950s. In such rarely seen oil paintings as the 1953 works ‘Flächenteilung Schwarz-Weiß-Grau 2’ and ‘Flächenteilung Schwarz-Weiß-Grau 1,’ viewers can see Lassnig exploring an abstract visual language bolstered by her immersion in French avant-garde circles and her relationships with such writers such as Paul Celan, Friederike Mayröcker, and Oswald Wiener.