Herbert Hinteregger and Koenraad Dedobeleer
A sense of disquietude concerning the existing order of things
In “A sense of disquietude concerning the existing order of things,”[1] Georg Kargl Fine Arts shows for the first time an exhibition that emerged as a collaboration between Belgian artist Koenraad Dedobbeleer (born in 1975) and the Austrian artist Herbert Hinteregger (born in 1970). The feeling referred to by the exhibition title not only moved the two artists to close collaboration, but also creeps upon the visitor upon walking through the broad, complex spaces of the gallery. The two artists move intermediate spaces, voids, everyday occurrences, which are apparently incidental and often fall beneath our usual threshold of perception, to the center of their artistic engagement. Together they develop a refined, multilayered series of references that refers to surprising commonalities and media intersections and opens a dense network of associations. They mark and alter the exhibition space through minimal, but effective interventions and subtle installational positionings and make it available to experience as a constantly changing space of action that counters existing systems of reference and standard patterns of perception, at the same time opening new ones.
Immediately upon entering the gallery, wooden scaffolding thrusts itself in the way of the visitor, reflecting in its material and dimensions the given architectural relations of the façade and directing the movements of the visitor along consciously staged pathways. Koenraad Dedobbeleer’s massive object, perfect in terms of its craftsmanship, is the result of an analysis of site-specific historical conditions. It questions the relationship between the exterior and the interior, stages problems like reality and model, coding and context at the intersection of autonomous sculpture and the everyday object. The disturbing spatial intervention serves, as it were, as the entrance into a playful laboratory of the two artists that is full of allusions, art historical references, and ironic commentaries. For example, Dedobbeleer balances a reconstruction of a Gerrit Rietveld chair painted in red ink by Hinteregger on a wood plinth that in its proportions and material execution corresponds to the gallery windows. Freed of its usual use value and placed in an absurd position on an ennobling pedestal, the artists affirm and yet counter in a humorous way the standard practices of presentation and mediation of art and design objects. In the tradition of institutional critique, they thus direct their attention toward institutional functions and structures with their aesthetic, economic framing conditions.
In colors and forms reduced to minimal elements, Hinteregger has for years consistently engaged with the constructive aspect of using material. Thin strips of adhesive tape spread out like a web on the partially glazed canvas and form a grid structure upon which the artist places monochroamatically geometrical fields of ink. The ink obtained laboriously from squeezed out ballpoint pens is applied in differing densities on the canvas, forming subtle structures which, depending on the standpoint of the beholder and the way the light falls, imply a sense of permanent movement. Iridescent surfaces of ink reflect the surroundings, opening as it were into the space and contrasting with the raw, structured canvas and the dully-grounded sections that absorb light and bind it back to the surface. The eye of the beholder is denied any fixed point of reference. It is kept in motion and tends to follow the painting across the actual limits of the image into the space and at the same time keeping to the limits of the canvas upon perceiving the exactly drawn outlines. Hinteregger’s works are neither this nor that; they are both at the same time. They are both abstract as well as figurative when they reflect the work of Josef Hoffmann in their geometrical surfaces; they are both painterly as well as constructive, and confirm the visual field while also transgressing it.
In combination with Dedobbeleer’s minimalist objects, a playful as well as poetic arrangement emerged that subscribes to the tradition of light-hearted appropriation, interconnection, and allusion, and that always reflects the architectural and historical givens of the exhibition space. Under the spiral staircase, Dedobbeleer has placed metal rods crowned by an umbrella-like cardboard object just in the exact place where Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light work For Ad Reinhardt was presented at the gallery’s opening exhibition in 1998.
The Circular Character of Reasoning is not a reconstruction of a Flavin sculpture without a function, that due to the cardboard object looks like a standing lamp; it is an autonomous sculpture that reflects beyond the practice of appropriation, in an elegant way questioning the autonomy of art works in their dependence on their spatial, historical, and thematic contexts.
When the artists deicide to include a black, mechanically-made metal grate by the artist Andreas Fogarasi without comment in their exhibition, this can be read like a sculptural translation of one of Hinteregger’s grid pictures, they also make it clear that the concept of artistic autonomy and originality have long been replaced by the ideational construction of components free of hierarchies and origins. Hinteregger/Dedobbeleer impressively comment in the gallery’s skylight space on the fact that artistic production is never solely based on individual imagination. Indeed, in the current cut and paste culture it is more than ever based on methods of appropriation, quotations, and (re)contextualization. Hinteregger entitles his action of removing the entire ceiling glazing to emphasize the pattern and the network structures that run through the entire exhibition like a thread Untitled (Man braucht nur das Getane Fortzusetzen). This quotation from a text by Ad Reinhardt (1929) was understood as a challenge to take the idea of including the glass ceiling in the exhibition context—an idea that had already been pursued by other artists—to the utmost. The space opens impressively upward and makes the otherwise hidden architectural occurrences and details of the industrial space of the former printing house visible, as if the spirit of the over 100-year-old history of the building had inscribed itself.
Koenraad Dedobeleer’s objects, like the metal lamps hanging at different heights and colorful ceramic balls, or the dwelling-like, constructivist floor sculpture, seem in this historical environment like a time capsule from an uncertain period, and in combination with Herbert Hinteregger’s exact, finely iridescent canvases grant new meaning to the “sense of disquietude concerning the existing order of things.”
Text: Fiona Liewehr
Translated by Brian Currid (zweisprachkunst.de)
[1] From, The Studio, 1906, “The Art-Revival in Austria,” “revivals in art spring from a sense of disquietude concerning the existing order of things: they are the strivings after truer and nobler ideals.“
Biography
born 1970 in Kirchberg/AT, lives and works in Kirchberg/AT, Tirol and Vienna
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025
Herbert Hinteregger, Lombardi—Kargl 5/5a, Wien
2024
Herbert Hinteregger, Zeitkunst Galerie, Kitzbühel
Herbert Hinteregger, Galerie Johann Widauer, Innsbruck
2022
How to (Untitled), Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
TODAY (Untitled), kunsthaus meurz, Mürzzuschlag
Herbert Hinteregger and Anna Kolodziejska, Galerie am Polylog, Wörgl
2021
Kunstverein Galerie am Polylog, Wörgl, with Anna Kolodziejska
Herbert Hinteregger, Galerie Johann Widauer, Innsbruck
2020
Solo booth, Vienna Contemporary 20, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Wien
White overpainted view (Show IV. Waldboden, Forest Floor), Zeitkunstgalerie Kitzbühel, Kitzbühel
Silver Paris Drawings (Show III. Waldboden, Forest Floor), Zeitkunstgalerie Kitzbühel, Kitzbühel
Space one painting (Show II. Waldboden, Forest Floor), Zeitkunstgalerie Kitzbühel, Kitzbühel
Untitled (gab nach, sodass sie zu fallen drohte), Galerie Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, Frankfurt-Main
2019
All over over all (Show I. Waldboden, Forest Floor), Zeitkunstgalerie Kitzbühel, Kitzbühel
Untitled (Kunstschnee), Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
Kunstverein Rosenheim
performance by appointment, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2017
Untitled (Flow), Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn
Untitled (Flow), Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
2016
Untitled (Value), RLB Atelier, Lienz
Now on Display, Sammlung Ivo Moser, Innsbruck
2014
Franz Graf/Herbert Hinteregger, Halle Otrans, Kitzbühel
2013
Eve-Level of my Art Dealer, Artissima, Torino
Herbert Hinteregger & Michael Sailstorfer, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2012
Halle Otrans, Kitzbühel
was, wann, warum, Galeria Antonia Ferrara, Regio Emilia
2010
A sense of disquietude concerning the existing order of things, Herbert Hinteregger and Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2008
Gasthof Schwarzer Adler, Jochberg
part 2, Galleria Antonio Ferrara, Reggio Emilia
2007
Neue Gemälde, Galerie Bernhard Knaus, Mannheim
Galerie Bernd Kugler (with Lisa Endriss), Innsbruck
2006
all over – store, Georg Kargl permanent, Vienna
2005
Private View, Antonio Ferrara, Reggio Emilia
all over, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz
2004
Gegenstände, Kunstraum Innsbruck/Project Space, Innsbruck
Get the picture, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2003
ball-pen-ink, Remise Bludenz, Bludenz (curated by Axel Jablonski)
Secrets and dangers, Galerie Bernhard Knaus, Mannheim
2002
Schwamm drüber, kunsthaus muerz, Mürzzuschlag
Antonio Ferrara, Reggio Emilia
2001
Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2000
Antonio Ferrara, Reggio Emilia
1999
Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Dekoration einer Langeweile, AM&E, Vienna
1997
App.Bxl; App.Bxl, Brussels
1995
Repeat, Trabant, Vienna
Triple Stripe Mural, Depot, Vienna
1994
10 x 10, Galerie Theuretzbacher, Vienna
1993
Wintersaison, Bad Habits, Kirchberg
1992
Kitzbühelerstr. 8, Arena, Kirchberg
Graffiti, Moustache, Kirchberg
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022
Anna Kolodziejska und Herbert Hinteregger, Galerie am POLYGOL, kunst.raum.wörgl, Wörgl
2021
frech und frei, MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna
KUNSTBÜHEL, Museum Kitzbühel | Sammlung Alfons Walde, Kitzbühel
2020
Attempt at Rapprochement, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Intermezzo II, Galerie Bernd Kugler, Innsbruck
2019
Konkrete Gegenwart, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich
Auf der Kippe. Eine Konfliktgeschichtedes Tabaks, Tiroler Volkskunstmuseum, Innsbruck
2018
Transformation of Geometry, Collections of Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, G HMP Prague City Gallery, Prague
20 Jahre RLB Kunstbrücke, RLB Kunstbrücke, Innsbruck
Sammlung der Raiffeisenbank Kitzbühel – St. Johann, Raiffeisen Haus, Kitzbühel
Kunstankäufe der Stadt Innsbruck 2018, Fördergalerie der Stadt Innsbruck, Innsbruck
PIN.Party, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
CONCENTRATION - a tribute, Gesellschaft für projektive Ästhetik, Georg Kargl, Vienna
Recollection, Galeria Poyectos Monclova, Mexico City
20 Jahre, RLB-Kunstbrücke, Innsbruck
La Collection BIC, Le CentQuatre Paris
Reduction, Gesellschaft für projektive Ästhetik, Georg Kargl, Vienna
2017
Relaunch, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Remastered - Die Kunst der Aneignung, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems
2016
Abstrakt - Spatial, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems
2015
Transparency, Georg Kargl Fine Arts & BOX, Vienna
Stadt Kunst Innsbruck, Die Sammlung der Stadt Innsbruck, Alte Stadtsäle, Innsbruck
a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, Semperdepot, Vienna
Schneesalon, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2014
Bildwelten der Reduktion, RLB Kunstbrücke, Innsbruck
Endoscopia, Galerie Bernd Kugler, Innsbruck
Konkret – Abstrakt, Parlament, Vienna
Sammlung RLB, RLB Atelier, Lienz
2013
Siehe was dich sieht, Franz Graf, 21er Haus, Vienna
Additive Abstraktion, curated by _Martin Prinzhorn, curated by_vienna 2013, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Sammlung Grauwinkel - 30 Jahre Konkrete Kunst (1882-2012), Vasarély Museum, Budapest
2012
Immer Bunter – Aktuelle Malerei aus Österreich, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
Nemesims, by Muntean/Rosenblum, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Sammlung Sigrid und Franz Wojda, MMKK, Klagenfurt
2011
Nemesims, by Muntean/Rosenblum, Frieze Art Fair, London
Killing the system softly, Galleria Antonio Ferrara, Region Emilia Italy
Darling, you sent me, B19, Vienna
Now on Display: Carol Bove, Sammlung Ivo Moser, Innsbruck
2010
Fine Line, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Sammlung der RaiffeisenBank Kitzbühel, Oberndorf
Kunstpreis 2010 der RLB Tirol, RLB Kunstbrücke, Innsbruck
Now on Display: Michael Sailstorfer, Sammlung Ivo Moser, Innsbruck
2009
31. Österreichischer Graphikwettbewerb 2009, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
Alpen-Adria-Galerie, Klagenfurt; Südtiroler Kulturinstitut, Bolzano
Fairly Abstract, Galerie Zink, Munich
THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE, BUT THE SHOW MUST GO ON, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck
2008
Vom Schnee, Museum Kitzbühel, Kitzbühel
warum so wenig, Kunstverein, Murau
12 works on paper, Galerie Bernd Kugler, Innsbruck
Ankäufe, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck
2007
...und immer fehlt mir was, und das quält mich, Atelier Färbergasse, Vienna
Statement, Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, Frankfurt am Main
White Painting and Curtain, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna
2006
Ca. 1000 m2Tiroler Kunst, ehem. Kaufhaus Tyrol, Innsbruck
Erwin Bohatsch und Student/innen, Investkredit Bank AG, Vienna
2005
Nach Rokytník, die Sammlung der EVN, MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna
Lines and Traces, Galerie Bernhard Knaus, Mannheim
Good Timing, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
The Red Thread, Howard House Gallery, Seattle, Educational Alliance Gallery, New York
2004
From Above, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Vienna Coffee Table, Galerie Bernhard Knaus, Mannheim
2003
Summer Holidays, Galerie Bernhard Knaus, Mannheim
Außer Atem. Fokus österreichische Malerei, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden
Re-Production 2, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2002
Collector’s Choice – Sammlung Ploil, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz
Variable Stücke, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
Blobs, wiggles and dots…, The Work Space, New York
steirischer herbst 2002, steirischer herbst, Graz
2001
Pittura austriae I/III, Kunstforum beim Rathaus, Hallein
Zusammenhänge im Biotop Kunst, kunsthaus muerz, Mürzzuschlag
steirischer herbst 2001, steirischer herbst, Graz
2000
Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
New Austrian Spotlight, Universität Marmara, Istanbul
Focus on…, Venetia Kapernekas Fine Arts, New York
1999
Weg aus dem Bild, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Prepared, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
1998
Malerei, Galerie Mezzanin, Vienna
Notas al Margen, Corp Balmaceda 1215, Santiago de Chile
1997
Bücherraum (Franz Graf), kunsthaus muerz, Mürzzuschlag
Still, Sal de Balle, Institut Français Vienna, curated by Sabine Schaschl
Träbanta, Trabant, Vienna
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