texts on the work of Robert Schaberl

Colored light. Auratic images in the literal sense of the word. Art of oscillation. Vibrating color fields titled purple dance with red copper-gold, red magenta (blood & wine), lava-red green silver-blue, deep cherry red magenta, soft silver rotation, rusty green, and lemon yellow. Brightly gleaming discs, light reflections and pulsating circular surfaces in infinite color variations, subtle color transitions, sometimes intense contrasts, but also studies in black.

Art of vibration, which achieves its maximum emphasis in large format and seeks balance in the seriality of medium and small formats. Robert Schaberl's concentric abstractions, which he carries out in various color gradations between ........

Painting for the Sake of Painting - the Central Forms of Robert Schaberl

First and foremost: seeing is always a presence that calls for passionate devotion from creator and viewer alike. If this is true in general for colour field painting, it is most fitting for the ever-changing sonic ambience shapes of Robert Schaberl that constantly re-create themselves. His path has been continuous from the mostly black oil painting of the early 1990s and the colourful monochrome canvases of the Berlin years, over the flickering, glazed colour solids built up of 60–70 layers of acrylic paint...........................

Spectrum of Light

Colours dance across the canvas, less like beams of light, more akin to flashes of lightning, iridescent and fleeting, crackling across smooth planes of colour. Robert Schaberl’s works, in particular his Zentralformen, are comprised of thousands upon thousands of concentric circles built layer upon layer, one on top of the other. They radiate out from the centre of a circle like an infinitely expanding field. The work spreads out like a supernova before contracting back in on itself, only to reach out again, like the tides, an endless, organic, circular, rhythmic process of renewal. In Schaberl’s work, each perfect circle is ringed with a fluorescent halo ..............

CIRCULAR CHROMATIC

By going beyond the issues of constructivism and minimal art through a finished picture, that is reminiscent of the industry’s mass production, his work questions the illusion of the virtual image in face of the imperfection of everyday.

in recent years, the work of the Austrian artist Robert Schaberl acquires a direction within the contemporary visual scene by standing out in painting with his latest series of acrylic paintings,

Spectrum of Light. What is special about these paintings is the work with light, color and the ability to reflect the means in which the canvases are shown. These are characterized by the seriality of circles displayed on large-size canvases, which together contain the typical chromatic ranges of the painter’s palette. What interests the artist is the concentration of light, solving how can develop a quality surface, and expanding it beyond the limits that he proposes, above all, in the appearance of an imagined center ..............

by Pía Cordero, © ARTE ALLIMITE 2014

L’Anamorphose Chromatique

L’anamorphose est une déformation réversible de l’image, généralement obtenue à l’aide d’un instrument optique placé près du sujet ou en regardant la toile sous un angle particulier. Ainsi, l’image dissimulée prend forme au fur et à mesure que notre regard se déplace.

Courante dans la peinture du XVII et XVIIIe siècle, elle connaît aujourd’hui une longue et prolifique évolution partant de l’art pour contribuer à maintes innovations techniques et esthétiques dans des domaines tels que l’architecture, l’audiovisuel, la cartographie,…

En Chine, il y a eu les anamorphoses de l’époque Ming (1368-1644), où à l’aide d’un miroir cylindrique, une image volontairement déformée retrouve son aspect. L’instrument devient alors déchiffreur de formes. En Europe, on retiendra Leonard de Vinci.............

Large-scale monochrome circles dominate in Robert Schaberl’s abstract art, circles which unfold over an intensive local-colour in clear contours on the pale background of the canvas.The large-scale central forms are placed format filling on the canvas and have a magic attraction force.With the help of intricate glazes and the use of inference pigments. Robert Schaberl creates concentrated meditational colour spaces of impressive power and depth.The highly intensive coats of colour laid on top of each other suggest an endless colour space which seems to swing in the centre of the circle and dissolves the two dimensional boundary of the canvas. ......................

Dr. Andrea Madesta, Director, © Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Cited in the catalogue for the Museum’s Exhibition farb.räume, September 2005 to January 2006

The Uncertainty of Perception

The Central Forms of Robert Schaberl

Circular forms, reminiscent of tondi or mandalas; but also reminiscent in a picture puzzle way of a tunnel or cones of light; colors that change with the position of the viewer; a surface structure that triggers impressions of a spiral pull, or, convexly scintillating, makes its materiality unclear. All this attracts the viewer.

Robert Schaberl titles his works “Central Forms“. At first sight mainly appealing to sensual perception, they soon become subject of an analytical refection of this perception. The haptic oscillating surfaces seem to tilt, and, upon closer inspection, dissolve into dashes of paint, scratches and reflections.

The play with proximity and distance, the disappearance of the object and of the illusionistic aspect in favor of a visualization of qualities such as form, light, and reflection – without regard to a narrative content – has a long tradition in art and cultural history. While as a viewer one tries to find the “right” position for the most beautiful illusion, one immediately thinks of Diego Velasquez’s painting “Las Meninas” (1656), or the painted architectures of Andrea Pozzo (e.g. his ceiling painting “Apotheosis of Hercules”, 1709, in the great hall of the Palais Liechtenstein in Vienna). With these works every change of position ...........................................

Zwischen Windkanal und Trompetenpfifferling

Diejenigen, die Robert Schaberl näher kennen, wissen, daß er ein notorischer Verführer ist. Dies betrifft selbstverständlich in erster Linie seine Malerei und in zweiter Linie, seine Pilzgerichte. Um dies näher zu verstehen, muß man eine Fülle von Stunden mit Robert Schaberl im Atelier und in der Küche verbracht haben.

In seinen Zentralformen lenkt er den Blick, verführt den Betrachter gewissermaßen zum räumlichen Sehgenuß durch reine Farbe und führt ihn zugleich ihn einen ernsten Konflikt. Der Betrachter wird im Sog der Zentralform hilflos subtilen Variationen in Farbtonigkeit, Oberflächenstruktur und Lichtbündelung ausgeliefert. Gegenüberstellungen dieser gemalten Manifestationen verstärken ...............

"Zentralformen" from Robert Schaberl

Over the past few years Robert Schaberl has developed a series of paintings which are entiteled Zentralformen. These monochromatic pictures adress themselves directly to the nature of painting as a material practise, whilst avoiding the pitfalls of a reductive "minimalist" discourse. Rather than using this medium to create illusory space, Schaberl has opted to investigate the relationship that developes through the interaction of painting, light and viewer.

Whilst much contemporary painting finds itself in crisis, the rigorously condensed format of these works opens a rich realm of visual speculation. They do not refer out to, or represent objects in the world but, rather adress themselves to value. The material ..............

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