25th Nov. – 14th Dec. 2013

Subject and substance. Painting and object. Crowd and individual. Power and powerlessness. Realism and abstraction. The works of Anton Petz move in the empty spaces and transitions between such notions. The Austrian artist’s latest show, MIGHT & MASS, at Reinisch Contemporary, presents a selection of particularly expressive works, some of which have never been exhibited before.

In his current paintings, Petz reflects on impressions of a personal as well as of a mediated nature, ranging from encounters with large crowds in China or the increasingly numbed (and numbing) effect of news images. Slightly blurred, highly colourised depictions of refugees, soldiers and scenes of leisure populate Petz’ large-format canvasses, where – thanks to their reincarnation as painting, the most traditional of art genres – they escape their original banality.

Günther Holler-Schuster