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Our Vienna office is based in the Palais Wilczek, where a charming exhibition room allows us to host lectures and travelling exhibitions on a regular basis. Sotheby’s Vienna also runs the Artist Quarterly program, founded by managing director Andrea Jungmann, to promote young artists by providing them with a space to present their works on Sotheby’s premises. Our specialists continue to be available to you and are happy to help you find out the value of your item.
Sotheby’s Artist Quarterly
Works by Mariella Lehner
“Record Catch”
Finissage, September 19, 5-8pm
July 18 - August 9, 2024
August 20 - September 30, 2024
Monday to Friday 9 am-5 pm
July & August Fridays 9 am-1 pm
In her exhibition Record Catch, Mariella Lehner explores the motifs of a series of postcards that she collected in New York City in 2023. The hand-colored postcards from the 1920s show the richness of North American monuments and natural landmarks. Tropical opulence in lush green, including a scene showing a record fish catch in Florida.
In a mixture of painting and drawing, the artist takes up this pictorial content and translates it into the visual language of her medium. Large-format works show dynamic compositions that are characterized by an interplay between line and surface.
In doing so, Lehner explores the question of how much the world has changed over the course of 100 years - and how this different kind of nostalgia suddenly gives rise to a feeling of farewell. Through her painterly gesture, she presents a view that unadornedly reveals the experiences of her generation and thus provides an insight into the collective mourning over a world in decay. The reduced color palette alone refers to the fading of this world; the titles reveal the irony between the lines like pinpricks. For if tourism, for which these postcards were produced, is not solely to blame, it is at least partly responsible for the disappearance of their motifs.
Mariella Lehner's works convey this with a lightness that is free of accusation. An appreciation, a being okay with it. Because nature is resilient, it adapts - despite the influences of man. This flow finds its way into her works and runs through the entire exhibition. It is not a dystopia or the past that is painted here. It is the present - in color.
For more information or to book an appointment, please contact:
sophie.weissensteiner@sothebys.com
