(Kappel, Carinthia, 1919–2014 Vienna)
“Innerhalb und außerhalb der Leinwand I”, 1984/85, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm, framed

Registered in:
Christa Murken, Maria Lassnig. Ihr Leben und ihr malerisches Werk. Ihre kunstgeschichtliche Stellung in der Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts (mit einem Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde -1987), Verlag Murken-Altrogge,1990, catalogue raisonné no. 388

Exhibited and illustrated with a full-page colour ill.:
Maria Lassnig. Innerhalb und außerhalb der Leinwand, Reinhard Onnasch Galerie, Berlin 1987;
Maria Lassnig. Mit dem Kopf durch die Wand, Neue Bilder. Kunstmuseum Lucerne , Lucerne 1989;
Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz 1989;
Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg 1989,
Secession, Vienna 1989
Ritter Verlag, Klagenfurt 1989, p. 45

Illustrated (in colour) in the catalogue:
Maria Lassnig. Der Ort der Bilder, Neue Galerie Graz,
Universalmuseum Joanneum/ Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Internationale Kunst und Fotografie, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2012, ill. III.1, illustrated: to the discussion between Oswald Wiener and Silvia Eiblmayr, moderated by Peter Pakesch
Maria Lassnig, Tate Liverpool, 2016, p. 110 (full-page, colour ill.)

Provenance:
Barbara Gross Gallery, Munich
Private Collection, Germany

I was undervalued for so long that now I cannot assess the current assessment.
Maria Lassnig

ABOUT TRANSFORMING BODILY SENSATIONS ONTO A SURFACE - MARIA LASSNING
The transformation occurs by way of the imagination and the latter is variable like the pulsating blood, carrying with it visually gathered remnants, the visuality of remembered images, of sunlight or the light bulb through closed eyelids.
The imagination can be explained as an image inside my head which usually requires some effort to perceive. One also does not know precisely whether its source is the imagination or a purposeful effort of our will. I certainly do not want to call it fancy, since it is a very matter-of-fact process rather than feelings running wild.
In transforming this imaginary picture it depends on my psychological strength whether I still depend on the outward, reality which has long been familiar.
In all this variability and the possibilities of transformation, one simply needs to follow the strongest impulse, making a choice all the time. But what do we mean by bodily sensation? And how much vivisection does an art tolerate, as much as love?
Not explored in every detail, because there are no words, because it seems too subjective, because I am accused of sophistry?
I certainly do not paint or draw the body as an “object” (if I have done so then these were exceptions as in my American realism or now in the drastic paintings) – but I paint sensations of the body.
Showing a sensation on a surface is as possible or impossible as it is to show e.g. a sound. It is more possible with touch because it can be perceived as more locally limited. Can a thought be shown and peeled off like skin?
It is difficult enough to locate a sensation (as every physician knows) – and one hits reality.
Then one has the desire to fence in and enclose these locations which have a certain extension (I have always called it “fencing in clouds”), and they turn into a shape.
As I have long said, these places are variable depending on the power of concentration that one directs towards a point of the body, these places are here temporal, disappear and appear somewhere else, it is only possible to find a resultant between them and this resultant is then usually the voluntary element in this effort. However, the voluntary element is at the same time the artist’s freedom and joy.
Connecting the places with lines (or less directly with areas) results in a shape.
Everything has a shape; a cloud, even a line has its thickness, length, the pressure with which it has been drawn, its smoothness or scraggliness, in short its shape, and every spot, dirt or splotch of paint likewise has its structure. – In choosing, the artist should probably have no rational choice but HAVE TO choose something.
There are things that are without language, that do not exist linguistically. Some people talk of a mystery in these cases or as Kant calls it: the “unimaginable” is also the “unnamable”.
But that does not really concern me here, for I do name: knee, cheek, hip point etc. and depict it in a more realistic or more abstract manner.
Only the “how” is the choice, therefore my choice is the mystery and not to choose the same as before, but something different, always something different.
Finding stability and permanence in the variability is a challenge for art.
I can therefore describe the possibilities of transformation better than the transformation itself.
The variety of transformations IS the transformation.
Maria Lassning, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Ritter Verlag, 1999

Registered in:
Christa Murken, Maria Lassnig. Ihr Leben und ihr malerisches Werk. Ihre kunstgeschichtliche Stellung in der Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts (mit einem Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde -1987), Verlag Murken-Altrogge,1990, catalogue raisonné no. 388

Exhibited and illustrated with a full-page colour ill.:
Maria Lassnig. Innerhalb und außerhalb der Leinwand, Reinhard Onnasch Galerie, Berlin 1987;
Maria Lassnig. Mit dem Kopf durch die Wand, Neue Bilder. Kunstmuseum Lucerne , Lucerne 1989;
Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz 1989;
Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg 1989,
Secession, Vienna 1989
Ritter Verlag, Klagenfurt 1989, p. 45

Illustrated (in colour) in the catalogue:
Maria Lassnig. Der Ort der Bilder, Neue Galerie Graz,
Universalmuseum Joanneum/ Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Internationale Kunst und Fotografie, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2012, ill. III.1, illustrated: to the discussion between Oswald Wiener and Silvia Eiblmayr, moderated by Peter Pakesch
Maria Lassnig, Tate Liverpool, 2016, p. 110 (full-page, colour ill.)

Provenance:
Barbara Gross Gallery, Munich
Private Collection, Germany

I was undervalued for so long that now I cannot assess the current assessment.
Maria Lassnig

ABOUT TRANSFORMING BODILY SENSATIONS ONTO A SURFACE MARIA LASSNING
The transformation occurs by way of the imagination and the latter is variable like the pulsating blood, carrying with it visually gathered remnants, the visuality of remembered images, of sunlight or the light bulb through closed eyelids.
The imagination can be explained as an image inside my head which usually requires some effort to perceive. One also does not know precisely whether its source is the imagination or a purposeful effort of our will. I certainly do not want to call it fancy, since it is a very matter-of-fact process rather than feelings running wild.
In transforming this imaginary picture it depends on my psychological strength whether I still depend on the outward, reality which has long been familiar.
In all this variability and the possibilities of transformation, one simply needs to follow the strongest impulse, making a choice all the time. But what do we mean by bodily sensation? And how much vivisection does an art tolerate, as much as love?
Not explored in every detail, because there are no words, because it seems too subjective, because I am accused of sophistry?
I certainly do not paint or draw the body as an “object” (if I have done so then these were exceptions as in my American realism or now in the drastic paintings) – but I paint sensations of the body.
Showing a sensation on a surface is as possible or impossible as it is to show e.g. a sound. It is more possible with touch because it can be perceived as more locally limited. Can a thought be shown and peeled off like skin?
It is difficult enough to locate a sensation (as every physician knows) – and one hits reality.
Then one has the desire to fence in and enclose these locations which have a certain extension (I have always called it “fencing in clouds”), and they turn into a shape.
As I have long said, these places are variable depending on the power of concentration that one directs towards a point of the body, these places are here temporal, disappear and appear somewhere else, it is only possible to find a resultant between them and this resultant is then usually the voluntary element in this effort. However, the voluntary element is at the same time the artist’s freedom and joy.
Connecting the places with lines (or less directly with areas) results in a shape.
Everything has a shape; a cloud, even a line has its thickness, length, the pressure with which it has been drawn, its smoothness or scraggliness, in short its shape, and every spot, dirt or splotch of paint likewise has its structure. – In choosing, the artist should probably have no rational choice but HAVE TO choose something.
There are things that are without language, that do not exist linguistically. Some people talk of a mystery in these cases or as Kant calls it: the “unimaginable” is also the “unnamable”.
But that does not really concern me here, for I do name: knee, cheek, hip point etc. and depict it in a more realistic or more abstract manner.
Only the “how” is the choice, therefore my choice is the mystery and not to choose the same as before, but something different, always something different.
Finding stability and permanence in the variability is a challenge for art.
I can therefore describe the possibilities of transformation better than the transformation itself.
The variety of transformations IS the transformation.
Maria Lassning, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Ritter Verlag, 1999