Galerie im Taxispalais

Roman Pfeffer

brain twister (mazzocchio)

In 2013 Roman Pfeffer (*1972 in Vöcklabruck, lives and works in Vienna) received the main award – the Tyrolean State Prize – in the 33rd Austrian Graphic Art Competition for his series Kompositionen (2012/2013). In his solo presentation entitled brain twister (mazzocchio), which is being shown parallel to the exhibition of the 34th Austrian Graphic Art Competition in the Galerie im Taxispalais, he is presenting sculptural works alongside the prize-winning series from 2013, giving an insight into his artistic practice. brain twister – the title of both our exhibition and one of the most recent works by Roman Pfeffer – is programmatic of his artistic production, inasmuch as it suggests a stirring of one's thoughts as well as signifying a tricky puzzle colloquially. In a subtle way, Pfeffer's works – created in a wide range of media from graphic art, painting and sculpture to photography and video – throw into question assumed certainties about the world around us, stimulating a break with visual habits and patterns of thought. In this context, he particularly enjoys deconstructing established systems of order and rules. The appropriation and “re-ordering” of existing objects and structures is Pfeffer's leitmotif, also determining his approach to the two groups of work on which this exhibition focuses: the graphic Kompositionen and the sculptural Mazzocchios. In the series of works entitled Kompositionen Roman Pfeffer breaks open the strict graphic structure of conventional music manuscript paper by dissecting single lines and reassembling them to create dynamic new compositions. The serial quality and obvious formal stringency of many of his pieces is a typical feature of Pfeffer's working method, as well as his conceptual starting point, which is characterized by a narrative moment and frequently also by ironic distance.
Since 2013 Roman Pfeffer has been working with the form of the mazzocchio, a polyhedral, ring-shaped type of 15th-century headgear best known from the work of Renaissance painter Paolo Uccello, who used it as the focus for his studies of geometry and perspective. Roman Pfeffer transposes this motif from art and cultural history to the conceptual and processual level by combining the 16 segments of the mazzocchio into ever new sculptural forms. In a work produced especially for the exhibition, he transfers this principle to a 17.5-metre-long competition rowing boat.

Curator: Lena Nievers