Rudolf Polanszky | Project

Rudolf Polanszky was born in Vienna in 1951. Considered a key figure in the Actionist and Post-Actionist movement in the Viennese Art Scene, Polanszky influenced and worked alongside artists such as Franz West and Dieter Roth. In 1976, with the film On a Semiology of the Senses and his first conceptual series titled Lard Drawings, Polanszky’s career was established. His practice developed through the observation of how behavior is unconsciously guided or, in his words, “externally directed”. He restricted himself to certain methods as a means of examining and formulating the structures of “process-dependent” results through the use of collage and assemblage. Alongside these quasi-scientific experiments he also produced works in Super 8 film and video. Italian curator Francesco Stocchi has referred to Polanszky as “a philosopher disguised as an artist” who knows well enough that “productive answers are to be found in the questions”. The result of Polanszky’s work is complex and physically unfolds through transformation, non-linearity, symmetries, and “ad hoc syntheses”. 

Selected solo and group exhibitions include 21er Haus Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Lenikus Collection, Vienna, Aanant & Zoo, Berlin, NMNM Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco, Frith Street Gallery, London, Kunsthalle, Vienna, Konsthall, Malmö, Bienniale Venice, Italy, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Biennale Sao Paulo, Brasil.