HERBERT BOECKL – HANS JOSEPHSOHN

Figural Archetypes
24th July 2026–10th January 2027 | Level -1

Select paintings by the eminent Austrian painter Herbert Boeckl (1894–1966) will enter into a tension-filled dialogue with sculptures by the Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920–2012): starting on 24 July, the exhibition Herbert Boeckl – Hans Josephsohn. Figural Archetypes will address existential and universal questions of humanity, and will open up new spaces of association.

Though the two artists never met, their oeuvres show fundamental parallels in terms of their form-finding processes and their concepts of corporeality and materiality. Irrespective of their differences with regards to historical, geographical and cultural constructs, the juxtaposition reveals surprising analogies in their works regarding formal esthetics and phenomenology. Despite the increasing prevalence of abstract art since the 1950s, neither Boeckl nor Josephsohn crossed the threshold into abstraction, and instead remained faithful to representationalism and especially to the human figure as a carrier of artistic expression. Both artists heavily abstracted their representations of the human body, and often dispensed with anatomical details in their works, as they sought to carve out the essentials through radical simplification and severe consolidation. This makes many of their figures appear de-individualized and stylized, revealing a universal human form.

Precisely because both artists ignored fashions and trends, and because they nipped illustrative visualization attempts in the bud, their works are dominated by a sense of timelessness and a universal, elementary, even archaic form language. Another correspondence in terms of formal characteristics is the processuality of their oeuvres: both artists rendered the process of creation of their works visible. Boeckl deliberately left indications of his brushstrokes and the sediment of paint layers; with Josephsohn, we can see how he applied and removed the plaster with his hands, traces that remained visible in the casts. The two artists are united by their interest in jagged and scarred surfaces in the media of painting and sculpture.

Curator: Hans-Peter Wipplinger

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