FRANCO VIOLA
Rethinking Nature
in the Theseus Temple at the Kunsthistorisches Museum
extended until August 20, 2006
FRANCO VIOLA – Rethinking Nature
An exhibition organized by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in cooperation with the Arterra
Museum under the aegis of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Opening Times: Tuesday - Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday till 9 p.m.
Free entrance!
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue by Skira Publishers, Milan.
The catalogue is available at the Theseus Temple and in the museum shop at the KHM.
Initially influenced by the expressionism of Nolde, Kirchner and Munch, and later by the
abstract expressionism of the New York School. Franco Viola dissects his graphically and
seismographically contoured landscapes into the basic elements of light and color.
His interest in Mark Rothko’s lyrical abstraction and the luminous power of Rothko’s colors,
as well as in Clyfford Still’s concept of the sublime, find expression in his form of “color field
painting.” In this rediscovery and reinvention of nature, Viola also finds his personal
painterly idiom, which links Caspar David Friedrich with American modernism.
Viola´s painterly gesture follows his immediate analyses of the nature of modernist
painting,
which reflect the upheavals of human consciousness and society and record the
contemporary situation of altered movements of perception and emotions.
Works of Viola were recently shown at the State Museum for Contemporary Art in
Thessalonica, at the Art Hall in Bremen, and at the Civic Museum Castello di Masnago,
Varese.
Plans call for “Rethinking Nature” to be shown in Berlin and Moscow.
Selected Objects
Biography