Herbert Brandl *

(born in Graz in 1959)
Untitled, signed and dated Brandl 2013 on the reverse, oil on canvas, 150 x 190 cm, on metal stretcher

Provenance:
Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder - label on the back
Private Collection, Germany

... At the beginning of each centura, artists face the challenge of the new century and the associated processes and developments, which can scarcely be predicted in advance. For important artists, breaking away from both the hidden and explicit norms of the important art of the previous century, finding new latitude for art, was never a matter of invention ex nihilo but rather an act of Hegelian “sublation”, Which does not throw the baby out with the bath water but instead makes it possible to see and experience the painting of the earlier century in a new way. Herbert Brandl’s painting since the year 2000 demonstrated this quality. It enables us to cease to perceive the tradition of the twentieth century as a burden while setting out on radically new, simplified path toward the combination of light and color. And it concludes from the omnipresent availibility of photographic images in the era of digital technology that a distanced memory of certain of these images can enable one to paint seemingly classical paintings of unusual freshness, tension, and power of invention….

Robert Fleck - Herbert Brandl - A central Position in Painting, Catalogue: Herbert Brandl. Deichtorhallen Hamburg 2009