Modern Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by Klaus Mosettig, the first presentation of the artist’s work in the United Kingdom.
In this exhibition at Modern Art, Klaus Mosettig presents a suite of pencil drawings on paper, each measuring just over one and a half metres square. Mosettig’s drawings result from a careful consideration of the intermediary mechanics of optical representation and manual reproduction. His process is to meticulously
transcribe a projected image, not for interest in the depiction of an image and the contextual narrative that its reproduction can carry, but for the hermetic and abstracted quality of an objective approach to the relay of visual information.
An earlier drawing shown as part of Mosettig’s recent solo show at Seccession, Vienna, reproduces images taken during the Apollo 11 moon landing, which document the surface of the moon in close-up photographic detail. These were images projected from slides found by Mosettig in a market, and though the subject matter of the images can be seen in the context of an interesting back-story, Mosettig posits a sense of value in the disinterested utility of images as found objects: images that occur as disembodied ghosts whose narrative is unknowable once their context is stripped away. The drawings themselves appear as painstakingly detailed tonal studies that are demonstrably photo-realistic, yet non-illustrative in character.
In making the drawings exhibited at Modern Art, Mosettig aimed an empty slide projector at his paper, doing nothing more than switching on the lamp and focusing the dust, dirt and scratches occurring on the lens surface into an image. Mosettig precisely recorded the resulting image, tracing the beamed shadows and drawing them by hand in pencil directly onto the surface. Each drawing corresponds to a specific and different projector, acquired secondhand by the artist only for the purpose. These drawings apprehend the material of interference — the visualisation of interrupted emptiness — with slight means and sustained effort. Mosettig’s subject is empirical and methodical, concerned with the material of drawing itself, the means of projection, and the hand as cipher.
Klaus Mosettig was born in Graz, Austria, in 1975. He lives and works in Vienna. Recent solo shows include Nature Morte, Kunstraum Dornbirn, Dornbirn, Austria (2010); Pradolux , Secession, Vienna, Austria (2009); Daily Output, Österreichisches Kulturforum Tokyo, Japan (2007); Holzplastik, Neue Galerie Studio, Graz, Austria (2006). Mosettig’s work has been included in the recent exhibitions Konstellationen, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria (2010); Mary Kelly / Christian Capurro / Klaus Mosettig, Simon Preston Gallery, New York, USA (2009−2010); and Postalternativ, Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna, Austria (2009).