Born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1934, the artist is considered one of the early representatives of Action Painting. Like no other artist after him, this pioneer of the visual arts has succeeded in overcoming the confines of two-dimensionality
and creatively shaping time and space with his ‘spin paintings’ (Rotationsbilder) and lenticular photographs.
Showing works held by the Essl Collection and loans from the artist, the exhibition focuses on important periods in his career:
action painting and spin paintings in the early 1960s and auto-binary stereo images from the 1980s and ‘90s, complemented
by lenticular photographs.
In the early 1960s, Schilling was in very close contact with Günter Brus and developed an extremely gestural, informal painting
style. It was in Paris in 1962 that he developed motorised spin paintings, in which Schilling built on his idea of moving
images: he painted on and poured and slung paint on rotating circular canvases of more than two metres in diameter. The spin paintings already revealed Schilling’s interest in combining aspects of movement and spatial experiences. Schilling
intensively explored aspects of viewing, motion and three-dimensionality and experimented with holographic and lenticular
images.
At the same time he also studied ‘viewing machines’ (Sehmaschinen), devices designed to manipulate the way in which one sees
a space, and auto-binary stereo images that open up into three-dimensionality when viewed through a prismatic monocle.
Alfons Schilling1 / 4
Exhibition view2 / 4
Exhibition View3 / 4
Portrait4 / 4
Bookshop
Alfons Schilling
German and English. 88 pages with numerous color images. With articles by Karlheinz Essl, Günther Oberhollenzer, Mela Maresch and Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer.
