texts on the work of Robert Schaberl

–– CIRCULAR SHAPES

Circular shapes that recall tondi, mysterious tunnels and at the same time cones of light, whose iridescent colors change through movement, lend Robert Schaberl's works an incredible pulling power and attraction. "Central forms" is how the Austrian artist calls his works, which are meant to appeal to our sensual perception first, in order then to stimulate an analytic reflection on this sensual impression. Thus, the haptic, light-focusing surfaces collapse and on closer inspection dissolve into masses of color, traces of scratching and reflections.

Schaberl's concentric abstractions, which he executes in a variety of color shadings between matt and glossy, are created through superimposing up to 70 layers of paint on a horizontally rotating picture carrier. They originate from early photographic experiments with everyday objects such as glasses and biomorphic round forms such as mushrooms.

At first glance they show a formal similarity with Concrete Art works such as the cryptic circular pictures of Hermann J. Painitz and Jasper Johns' targets. Schaberl's aesthetic of the round form is mainly sensory exuberance, however, the training of sensitivity and visual interpretation. By means of reflection, light mirroring, and the application of several layers of paint, the color and spatial effect of the picture changes according to the observational perspective concerned. Schaberl's artworks are designed around the interplay of light, the surrounding space, and the viewer.

Robert Schaberl - (DE)ZENTRAL

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 ........

MAGICAL MOMENTS

Everyone knows these magical moments at the break of dawn: The first faint light of dawn begins to brighten the horizon. Hesitantly, vague contours start to appear in the landscape, but everything still unfolds in varying shades of gray. Then, gradually, nuance by nuance, the first colors crystallize in the morning light. As it gets brighter, the colors become more vibrant, and gradually, the contours transform into recognizable shapes. Once the first direct rays of the sun mix in with their warm streaks of light, these shapes gain more substance and solidity. They begin to appear three-dimensional, and the surfaces take on distinct textures. This delicate, ever-repeating spectacle fascinates me. It stimulates my color senses and deeply inspires me.

This constant changing of colors

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

**The Chromatic Anamorphosis**

Anamorphosis is a reversible distortion of an image, usually achieved using an optical instrument placed near the subject or by viewing the canvas from a particular angle. Thus, the hidden image takes shape as our gaze moves.

Common in 17th and 18th-century painting, anamorphosis has undergone a long and prolific evolution, starting from art and contributing to many technical and aesthetic innovations in fields such as architecture, audiovisuals, cartography, and more.

In China, there were anamorphoses during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), where a deliberately distorted image regained its appearance using a cylindrical mirror. The instrument thus becomes a decipherer of forms. In Europe, Leonardo da Vinci's......

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

**Between Wind Tunnel and Trumpet Chanterelle**

Those who know Robert Schaberl well are aware that he is a notorious seducer. This primarily applies to his painting and, secondarily, to his mushroom dishes. To understand this better, one must have spent countless hours with Robert Schaberl in his studio and kitchen.

In his central forms, he directs the gaze, seducing the viewer to spatial visual pleasure through pure color, while simultaneously leading them into a serious conflict. The viewer, drawn into the vortex of the central form, is helplessly exposed to subtle variations in color tonality, surface structure, and light concentration. Juxtaposing these painted manifestations further intensifies the suggestion. Only after prolonged viewing do the individual color worlds of the different glazes reveal themselves following the spatial tempos. The readability, or rather seeability, is variable. While the gaze on one central form might glide rhythmically from the outer edges toward the center, in another work, the surface structure creates...............

"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 ..............

MAGICAL MOMENTS

SUBSCRIBE TO MY MAILING LIST