For Trata, Rainer Spangl’s second exhibition at Song Song, the artist uses canvases as not just as pictorial devices in which depiction happens within the space of the image bounded by the canvas frame, but also as
structural elements by which space is manifested as a phantom architecture that exists between canvases, and is synecdochially indicated by those images rather than represented by them.  

Spangl used his first exhibition with the gallery, Blätter und Kammern, 2010, to introduce us to his technique of painterly meditation on spaces which are designed for particular kinds of visual contemplation.  A curious relationship to these spaces and traditions, one that is respectful without being conservative, was made tangible in paintings of the artist’s private garden together with images of officially sanctioned spaces for aesthetic experience, like museums or places of renowned beauty or historical importance.  In the current exhibition, Spangl deepens and refines this discussion with a series of paintings that recreate a gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, by representing its corners.  Another series amalgamates this architecture with a painted representation of a mural—which sets the ancient precedent for this contemporary, fragmented aesthetic strategy—of dancing women.  The music to which the women dance is absent, but the visual beat of their movement compounds with that of the adjacent, singularly still series, producing a polyrhythmic pattern that puts order to the stirring melody of color that courses through the paintings.

Rainer Spangl (b. 1977 in  Vienna) studied at the University of applied arts Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University College of Leeds, Bretton Hall, UK. Recent solo exhibitions include  Song Song, Vienna (2010),  and Devening projects + editions, Chicago (2008).  His works have been presented in group exhibitions at Devening projects + editions in Chicago, Julius Caesar in Chicago, Trottoir in Hamburg, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Fifty-50 Gallery in Chicago and at Swingr in Vienna.
An upcoming solo exhibition include Devening projects+editions, Chicago (2013).  Since 2010 he co-curates the “Artist Lecture Series Vienna”.

More information about the artist can be found at www.rainerspangl.com. The opening reception for Trata will be Thursday, 20th September, from 19 - 21h.  The artist will be present.  The exhibition will run from 21 September – 27th October, 2012.