For the fourth appointment of the “For Rent/For Sale” format, which is now moving to the Flaminio area in a house for sale in Via Fracassini, Arteealtro was happy to welcome the proposal from the Austrian Forum of Culture to present the work of Lukas Zallinger – born in Germany in 1974, but resident tin Austria since birth.
A choice dictated by the desire to collaborate with a foreign institute of culture institutionally active in our country, a desire which coincides with my wanting to establish international relations with new artists in different realities, trying to set up a synergy with the format and the artists I represent.
For his first solo show Lukas Zallinger will present a series of acrylic paintings on canvas created in past years, in which the language, between abstract and figurative, reminds his great passion for the Afro-American artist Basquiat. Art pieces of different dimensions where multi-coloured images, between animal and human, emerge from dark and coloured backgrounds, with inscriptions in English and French that are reminiscent of the language of comic books and the apparent nonsense, typical of the flow of conscience. With these artworks Lukas Zallinger wants to exemplify the extraordinary nature of the pictorial instrument as a means to disclose the polarities and the contradictions of Man: from his innate and absolute beauty, to his disturbing and monstrous bestiality. Apart from the canvases, the artist will show a series of small multi-coloured drawings, and a few short clips which will be projected on a loop on the wall of one of the apartment’s room, in which some odd characters, who seem to have popped out of his paintings, act out ritual-style situations in different settings. An artist whose passions range from painting, cinema, music and culture, Lukas Zallinger has never attended the Fine Arts Academy, yet he has been painting since he was a child. Fully aware of his “origins” and his aims, he simply paints because he cannot do otherwise, and he is not even that interested to participate in exhibits or to find a gallery, as his short cv shows, although he is not new to the art world.
Looking at his photographic work for the first time, I intuitively knew there was an interesting story behind it all, a unique one, and that it was perhaps worth making a trip to Vienna to find out more. As soon as I set foot in his atelier I immediately realised I had been right in making that trip.
Elisabetta Giovagnoni
