Matthias Noggler
Tree (2023)
“Matthias Noggler’s paintings question the act of seeing. His figures are frontal, yet they are painted in a velvety blue color—as if by night itself, rendering their forms barely intelligible. They stand in formations, on provisional stages, arms linked—either confronting the viewer or turning their backs to them. They appear trapped within the frames, blurring into their surroundings, their bodies contorted to fit and pose. However, their stiffness and resoluteness have an activating quality, as if calling out the status quo of passive viewing. Noggler’s work has long been characterized by the appropriation of various historical references and painterly styles. In his latest series of works the canvases are loaded with the knowledge about the failed potential of modernist political painting. In that fashion, Noggler’s figures demand attention and action, however, due to their reduced visibility, those very acts are hindered. The resulting works are abstracted images, which no longer hold hope for grand actions, but attempt to hold the viewer in an unresolved tension of perceiving”.
(from a text by Julija Zaharijević)
photography: kunst-dokumentation.com, courtesy of Layr
Tbc (2023)
Matthias Noggler Biography
Matthias Noggler (b. 1990 in Innsbruck, Austria) lives and works in Berlin and Vienna. He graduated from the University of Applied Arts, Vienna in 2013 and from the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna in 2016, studying with professor Judith Eisler, Silke Otto-Knapp, Henning Bohl and Julian Göthe. Recent solo exhibitions include Iterations, DREI Cologne (2023), Thicket of Things, Layr Seilerstaette and Coburgbastei (2021), Consecrated by human use, Galerie Emanuel Layr Vienna (2018), Among Ourselves, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2016), Xerox, Mauve (2015), Rolex, Galerie im Andechshof (2014) and Suntory Times II, Bar du Bois (2013). Selected group exhibitions include Avant-garde and the contemporary, The Belvedere Collection from Lassnig to Knebl, Belvedere 21 (2021), Der Radwechsel, Universitätsgalerie im Heiligenkreuzerhof, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna (2022), On Heavy Rotation, Callirrhoë, Athens (2020), Über das Neue. Junge Szenen in Wien, Belvedere 21 (2019), Matthias Noggler, Birke Gorm, Nora Kapfer, Galerie der Stadt Schwaz (Schwaz, AT, 2018), The Munchhausen Effect, Galerie 5020 (Salzburg, AT, 2017), 20 Jahre Halle für Kunst Lueneburg, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg (Lüneburg, GE, 2015). Public collections include, among others, Belvedere (Vienna), Wien Museum (Vienna), Landesgalerie Linz (Linz), Tiroler Landesmuseum (Innsbruck), Vienna Insurance Group (Vienna).