The "space mosaics" of Susanne Riegelnik

The paintings of Susanne Riegelnik in principle encompass two levels which orient the entire structural denotation into two diverging directions. On the one hand the artist deals with geographic formations, town and country maps as a graphic basis for structures in which the recognizable original forms of a town map or a country map completely disappear as a result of the color and the coloristic tensions or only evoke memories in the spectator. Especially her latest pictures show a tendency towards an ever more artistic, ever less graphic form conception which is realized by the intensification of the color effect.

The geographic formations and town maps are documented by satellite photos on which the different cultural changes such as for example environment pollution, energy consumption, the congested town structure, etc. appear as optic phenomena. On the huge picture which deals with water pollution in the sea, the frightening areas representing polluted waters are artistically shown as coloristic phenomena. The artist makes her strong colors compete with each other: black, yellow, red and blue color patches form the basic structure of the pictures. In some details, such as e.g. the Black Sea with the Bosporus, the entirely polluted bays are shown in an artistically very expressive form where geographic shapes almost disappear behind the color structure. The turbulent waters, the flow of the big rivers completely polluting the sea, the currents in the Mediterranean show an almost catastrophic picture of the Mediterranean holiday paradise, as a somewhat alarming prototype for the entire environment.

Intriguing information, the shocking facts we become acquainted with ever more intensively with the new technology in environment research, TV screens, magazines, books show us every day how modern civilization systematically ruins our environment. Once the spectator has become aware of this information level he has to face the reality of civilization at the turn of the Century. The plastic, colored representation, however, has much greater effect than the purely scientific, sociologically matter-of-fact information: we are confronted with pictures conveying beauty and freshness, liveliness, and an unconventional coloristic dynamic. The expressive, courageously colored pictures such as the Mediterranean or Hawaii are the result of tackling the heritage of abstract expressionism and informal painting. The first period of the artist, when she got to know the monumental, dramatic paintings of Hermann Nitsch and had also been his student, can still be traced in her colors. Her preference for great formats is surely to be attributed to Nitsch as well. In this context it should also be mentioned that the monumental aspect of the color, often applied with a precisely monitored reductivity, stems from the dialectics of quantity and quality of the color intensity just as well.

There are pictures on which significant areas are monochrome in order to render more tension to the confrontation of a few colors. Black, yellow, red or black, blue, green are the typical color combinations determining the essence of the picture. Some of the pictures of the latest cycle show to an increasing extent black areas. The USA picture is a good example for color reduction: the map of the United States of America is drawn with black, generously applied strokes on a dark blue, almost black grounding. The yellow spots and the minute "dripping" areas show a "night" picture of the giant country, where energy exploitation is indicated by means of light, yellow areas. A "map" consisting of black, gestured brush strokes becomes visible on a dark blue grounding, a very artistic surface with the geographic information almost vanished. The picture might be compared to night photos taken over American metropolises, the actual architectural design being recognizable only by the light, like on a "negative". This picture furthermore represents the ambiguity of this kind of painting: on one hand entirely artistic, detached from forms and themes, on the other sometimes almost illusionary. Illusionary in that the surface of the picture sometimes shows photographic objectivity. A plasticity which reminds of multi-dimensional maps, or, even more so, of cartographic shots.

Nevertheless, it is the color which dominates the scene which at the same time conveys a fresh, unconventional, decorative coloring and a message demanding consideration. Beauty and destruction, pleasure and decay are in close vicinity. It is the unusual nearness which gives a lyric touch to the pictures which are in no way political or poster-like signals of alarm; they are simply pictures, structures made with colors, despite their simplicity containing the ambivalence of perspective and the diversity of interpretation. The paintings do not aspire to be more than pictures dealing with everything, thus also the negative, the alarming - and re-interpret this towards an autonomous colored structure. The discovery of the original formation of a town or a continent provides the spectator with "material" to ponder, to reconsider the relationship between primarily picturesque facts and our knowledge, our achievements which might take up yet another meaning in another context. The sole reality is and will be the picture, the colors, the dimensions of the colored patches.


Dr. Lóránd Hegyi
curator art historian Autor
co-curator Biennale Venice 1993
curator Triennale Kleinplastik Fellbach 1995
curator Biennale Valencia 2003
director MUMOK Wien
director Musée d´Art Moderne, Saint-Etienne MAM