Fotogalerie

Hans Jandl arbeitet seit den 1990er Jahren neben der Ölmalerei mit Blei als bedeutungsgeladenem künstlerischem Material. Bleiobjekte, Installationen und ergänzende Bildteile zu den Ölbildern sind häufig zu sehen. Auch während der bedrückenden Performance Auftritte werden Blei, Kupfer und andere schon bei Joseph Beuys oder Anselm Kiefer verwendete Materialien verwendet und inszeniert.

Contemporary Austrian Artists, New York 2006 about Hans JANDL

Being conscious of the impossibility of demystyfying painting by painting he confronts it with different materials, preferentially lead. He thematises the non-painted painting in a lead picture, by directly mounting the lead on a wedge frame, just as the canvas on the conventional painting. He makes clear that painting - in trying to find its sense and justification - transcends its limits, because it is, according to M. Fried, forced to "risk its identity by binding itself to things which are not painting".¹

Hans Jandl however is not only concerned by the painting effect of lead due to its constant changing, for him it is above all a synonym for ambivalence and vagueness. Lead is one of the heaviest and at the same time softest metals , it is malleable and compact, just as dangerously poisonous as protective. It has a direct reference to painting by its own gray colour, as white lead and as component for various colours in form of lead oxyde.

Jandl´s preference for this material is an expression of his preference for contrasts, ruptres, differences. in their calculated vagueness his pictures can be seen as an encouragement to become conscious of the variety and uncertainty of all being. They are just as much spontaneous as devised, open and resurved, concrete and abstract. At any rate they are good painting and their many-layered substance is revealed to any interested and attendive critic.

Dr. Gertrude Celedin