Bertram Hasenauer

The focus of Bertram Hasenauer’ s work is the portrait, or rather the figure, although the latter, placed in front of a monochrome white or dark background, does not primarily function as a (naturalistic) depiction, but rather seeks to convey the idea of the portrait as such. Bertram Hasenauer thereby simultaneously offers us a highly differentiated view of the respective young persons, one that emphasizes what remains; all spontaneity and dynamism has departed from them, they appear androgynous and seem to be floating in space. Art critics have used the term Magic Realism in view of the almost metaphysical distance from reality that the figures seem to have moved to, a concept that the artist is said to have expanded to include a spiral of the enigmatic. Bertram Hasenauer uses pictures from journals and magazines as the basis for his work. He applies his colors as a thin film on a finely structured primer. The enigmatic impact of what, according to the artist, “ appears to be a portrait turns out to be the idea of a possible portrayed figure; what appears to be the image of a human figure immediately disappears into the vague spheres of the memory of a figure.”

Axel Lapp has been managing the MEWO Kunsthalle in Memmingen and the two historic Bavarian houses, the Strigel and the Antoniter Museum, since 2012. In addition, he writes about art, but his primary interest is in mediation and, in the rural environment, first contact with art and culture. Bertram Hasenauer (b. 1970 in Saalfelden, Austria ) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at the University of the Arts in Berlin from 1992 to 1997 and at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London from 1997 to 1998. He lives and works in Berlin. In 2011 he was awarded with the Grand Art Prize of the Province of Salzburg The jury stated the following as reasons for its decision: In two decades Bertram Hasenauer has developed an unmistakable artistic signature that is understood internationally. Annelie Lü tgens (b. 1956 in Hamburg) is an art historian, curator and publicist specialising in art, photography and fashion in the 20th century. She researches in particular works by women artists, the relationship between art and fashion, New Objectivity art, outsider art as well as drawing, graphics and illustration since the 1920s. She lives in Berlin. She was curator at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg from 1996 to 2011, and then headed the Graphic Arts Collection at the Berlinische Galerie until 2022. There, she curated the retrospective on Dorothy Annone, Jeanne Mammen and Lotte Laserstein.