Florian Schmidt

The works of the Austrian artist Florian Schmidt (*?1980) vary between painting and sculpture. Their ambiguity results from a specific view of painting which is not defined by its being a picture, but by appearing as a material surface, a relief. In a sculptural approach, wood, cardboard, metal scraps, even parts of disassembled works are related to one another in a way that is neither purely painterly nor sculptural. The works quote the idea of monochromy as that endpoint of representation which reduces the painting to its material surface, while? — ?being made of recycled material?–?they also emphasize the analogy between painting and the readymade. Even basic characteristics of the medium like the picture plane or frame are subtly undermined in Schmidt’s works in which the inner and outer form keep blending into one another. 0Exhibition: Kunsthalle Krems, Austria (20.10.2013-16.2.2014).