Messensee: Design for Easy Living

Jurgen Messensee (*1936 in Vienna), one the leading artists of his generation, occupies an important position in the fields of painting and drawing in Austria. Nature is the model for Messensee’s work, in particular the human figure, which he dissolves into emblematic forms with an expressive gesture. His works can essentially be regarded as coded appropriations of nature in which manifest symbols such as female swimmers, mouths, or catamarans-distinguishing features of his oeuvre. In recent years Messensee has been supplementing his drawings and paintings with the jet print, greatly enlarging his own drawings and then painting them. In this process, the artist is interested in shifting and manipulating perception: what is real, and what is fiction? This publication presents the various stages of his oeuvre, and texts by Ingried Brugger and Florian Steininger probe its depths.Exhibition schedule: Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, September 4-October 6, 2013