José Carlos Viana
Iris
New Works 2010 - 2011

Selected works of the Würth Collection and Loans of the artist
19 April to 14 October 2012

For the second time, Hirschwirtscheuer in Künzelsau hosts the Portuguese artist José Carlos Viana (*1937 in Lisbon) and shows a select choice of his works of the last two decades, particularly of the most recent, color-intensive creative period of the Zurich resident.

During the first exhibition of his works in 2003/2004, visitors were already captivated by his great malleability and the variety of his painted reflections about the nature of painting. It still remains a difficult task to pigeonhole him as painter from any one art movement. None of the directions, none of the "-isms" of modern art can be tied to his name without any contradiction.

It rather seems that Viana follows modern art and its "main and side movements" with a knowing smile, always remaining a few steps behind to stay loyal to himself alone and to come up with painted compositions of a simple, almost minimalistic application of layers, the unexpected "Simplicity" - as he refers to it - of which goes beyond all mundane gravity. For what ultimately drives him is not a repetition of what has been looked at or the execution of always the same but a continuation in the spirit of a process of remembrance.