Gerwald Rockenschaub Untitled, 2014 Acrylic, frame: oiled oak 90 x 125 x 5 cm Gerwald Rockenschaub (born 1952) is one of Austria’s most renowned contemporary artists and a successful DJ. His music is part of his cultural background which has led to a complex sculptural oeuvre, from the geometrically constructed oil paintings of the early 1980s, which can classified as part of the Neo-Geo movement, Rockenschaub has since developed a simple formal language borrowed from the world of pictograms and popular culture, materializing it in work which integrates art, design and media. The inlays of coloured acrylic glass, which exclude any and every hint of a personal stylistic hand, are surrounded by a massively constructed oak frame that underlines the works' picturality, and also points toward Rockenschaub's expanded conception of painting, which in the last thirty years he has continually redefined and condensed. In 1993, Rockenschaub worked with Andrea Fraser and Christian Philipp Müller in designing the exhibition at the Austrian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. In 2007 he was featured at Documenta 12 with several works. In 2008, he designed the first external façade for Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin and presented three large installations at Kunsthalle Bern. Further works of his were recently shown at Kunsthalle Bern (2008), Villa Stuck, Munich (2009), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2011), and Schauwerk Sindelfingen (on view until 2015).
