Galerie Dantendorfer
PETER BALDINGER
LOOK TWICE!
2 June – 2 July 2021
Exhibition: LOOK TWICE!
Artist: Peter Baldinger
Period: 2 June – 2 July 2021
In Peter Baldinger’s extensive oeuvre, there is a recurring theme: dissolution. He approaches it repeatedly from different perspectives, attempting to rediscover it through various techniques and playfully engage with it. In the paintings of the exhibition BALDINGER. LOOK TWICE!, he systematically approaches everyday motifs and well-known subjects from art history, asking: How much information is necessary to recognize a motif? Or conversely: How much image resolution can be reduced without losing the motif entirely?
Just as a person can comprehend a sentence even if some letters are missing, it is also possible to “read” Baldinger’s works. However, a trained viewer and some distance are needed to recognize the chosen motif in its dissolved form. Similar to Impressionist works, recognizing the motif up close is difficult. When viewed from a sufficient distance, or through a camera lens, the outlines of the depicted subject become clearer. It becomes evident that everything necessary is present in the works – all essential information, reduced to the essence of the colors and transformed into square “pixels.” The choice of oil and watercolor painting recalls works by Old Masters of art history. A contrast arises between the large-scale oil paintings, where the colors shine with opacity and intensity, and the delicate watercolors on heavy paper, in which they appear translucent and almost fleeting, as if the “pixels” might fade in the next moment.
The origin of Baldinger’s engagement with the theme of dissolution lies in the way modern media confront questions of identity amid today’s flood of images. Am I the images and reports about me circulating in the media, or do I dissolve entirely within them? And can I, from a sufficient distance, recognize myself in the images of me that exist? Do I become visible in them?
This is precisely what one finds in Baldinger’s works – the essence of the chosen motifs, respect for the subjects, and simultaneously a constructive-critical commentary on the contemporary zeitgeist.
Exhibition Views
