Drawings and Paintings
The first solo exhibition in Slovenia of one of Austria’s most important and internationally renowned artists, Maria Lassnig.
Throughout her remarkable artistic career Maria Lassnig produced a prolific body of paintings and drawings, and also pursued filmmaking. Lassnig’s works form an important part of the permanent collections of major museums, including MoMA in New York City, the Albertina Museum Vienna, and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Maria Lassnig (1919–2014) is a central figure of the 20th century European art. She is particularly known for the depth of psychological expression in her self-portraits and her concept of Body Awareness (Körperbewusstsein). Lassnig gained well deserved public recognition at a relatively late stage in her life, at the age of 70. She is the first woman to be appointed professor of painting at a fine arts academy in the German-speaking cultural space.
According to Peter Pakesch, co-curator of the Ljubljana exhibition and Chairman of the Board at Maria Lassnig Foundation dedicated to preserving her legacy, Maria Lassnig can be considered as one of the major artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but remains of continuous relevance, especially among young artists.
“We decided to present an exhibition focused on drawings when we realised how much urgency is in this part of her work. It shows an artist of the highest complexity and greatest relevance. It will be an excellent introduction to her work in this part of the world so close to her place of birth."
—Peter Pakesch, Chairmain of the Board of the Maria Lassnig Foundation
Katarina Hergouth, Exhibitions Programme Director at Cankarjev dom and co-curator of the exhibition: "The exhibition follows a concept that takes visitors on a journey through the artist's life, chronologically chronicling important sites and turning points through works of art created in each period.”
"Maria Lassnig's works are incredibly inspiring, especially because of her extraordinary sincerity, one might say shamelessness, which is reflected in her work and often addresses the viewer directly. We hope this exhibition will allow for a better understanding of her work and prove an inspiring experience for the visitors.”
—Katharina Hergouth, Cankarjev Dom Curator
Claire Hoffmann, contributing writer to the exhibition catalogue, on the functions of drawing for Maria Lassnig: “Since her early days as an artist, drawing was always a big part of Lassnig’s work. Not only in terms of sheer volume does drawing play an important role in her oeuvre. It was in drawing that she grappled with the central problems connected with finding her identity as an artist and the circumstances of her physical situatedness. Maria Lassnig thus positioned herself as an artist in her own right both in and with drawing."
"Seeking to insert herself into a male canon, she claimed her place by making productive use of the subjective initial position during drawing and the activity of drawing itself as a process of pictorial invention for the purpose of reflection and composition, for her investigation of space. Based on a selection of sheets from around the 1990s until the end of her life, it is possible to trace these functions that drawing served for Maria Lassnig, functions that would come to occupy her particularly in the latter years of her life, when the question of her legacy was becoming increasingly important. At the same time, they demonstrate that the investigative processes by means of drawing were never concluded.”
—Claire Hoffman, Exhibition Catalogue Writer
