OLIVER LANZ

Lanz is a graduate of the Kunstakademie Duesseldorf and Hochschule der Bildenden Kuenste, Berlin. He is the recipient of the esteemedGerman Max Ernst Award for painting in 2002, and the prestigious SwissVordemberge-Gildewart Award in 2003.

A great colorist, Lanz’s mostly large canvases are an adept combination of matter, surface, and pigment. He arrives at some of hisformations, brush in hand, through an interplay of intuitive action andreaction; others more calculatedly incorporate unrecognizably enlargedline drawings based on images from various media sources or reducedfigurative elements.

The utilization of oils, acrylics, or silver paint allow Lanz to create such varied effects as accumulations of translucent washes,vibrant depths of color, and occasional muting silvery expanses. Hisapplication of a broad formal vocabulary is rhythmically sure andgenerously precise.

While each of his works functions individually with it’s own set of unique variables, their panoramic installation in grid-like structuresallows for a non-stylistic yet complimentary formalistic reading. Butmore questions as to subject or intent are raised, and an accommodatingopenness of potential readings is achieved.

The Vordemberge-Gildewart Award jury stated that Lanz ”...is successful in placing the visual attitude of today’s digital culture into thetraditional medium of painting”. With each individual piece functioningas a specific set of data, his grouped paintings combine to formnetworks of open-ended completeness.

Oliver Lanz’s work was included in Across the Universe (with Jason Paradis and Dorothea Rockburne) at Marcus Ritter, 2002, and After Matisse Picasso at P.S. 1, 2003, both in New York. He also had solo exhibitions atDaniel Schmidt, Cologne, 2003, and Ritter/Zamet, London, 2004. AMonograph edited by Uta Grosenick (co-author, Art at the End of theMillenium, 1999/2000 and Art Now, 2002) is forthcoming.