Erweiterter Malerischer Raum – Klasse Daniel Richter

If we were to describe our class, it would be better if we didn't.

A definition has the task of distinguishing, or highlighting the specificities of an entity. The entity of our class can hardly be put into a single focus. If you have ever passed by the atelier, you have probably felt like being in a jungle — struggling not to trip over something here and there, especially on the boundaries between one workspace and another. These are marked by the most peculiar constructions: curtains made from old canvases, precarious wooden planks, old sheets — and we even have a small shelter built from wooden doors! All the while, our kitchen space is announced by Manzo (a white bear sculpture who blesses our meals from above). These markers and trinkets are put up to make each space inviolable and as intimate as possible. Thus, in our attempts to isolate ourselves from intrusions into an extremely crowded studio, we try to leave as much space as possible for our individual stories, introspective journeys, outbursts of personal struggles and character whims. When visiting, you are faced with a disharmonious and discordant landscape. If you have ever been a child under the age of four, you have probably, in your fury or joy, mixed puzzle pieces from different packages into one big pile of shit, not giving a damn about the true meaning of the game. Here each of us is like a little piece of the puzzle that could never form a continuous picture with other pieces. Attempting to fit them into a whole is as utopian as providing a single picture of our class's artistic research would be great hypocrisy. Among us, you might find inconsolable abstract (or nearly abstract) dreamers and painters more figurative than reality itself whose weapon of choice is humour and kitsch. You'll find those impatient with the conservatism of Austrian (or foreign) provinces reflecting on femininity and toxic masculinity. You'll see people from all over the world who carry evidence of their cultures in their suitcases and have to deal with a lack of feeling of belonging. And finally, you'll find those who express personal traumas and interpersonal conflicts, violence and abuse suffered in the past — or simply a feeling of apathy and melancholy. Our stories, our compassion and our diversity are our strengths. They bring our crowded studio to life. Being squeezed in like sardines, all different in one stinking can filled to the brim with oil makes us all complicit in one thing: painting! We are all damn painters and we commit crimes against culture every day through the fantastic, incomparable, good old medium of painting."""""""""""""""""