Heimo Zobernig
Austrian artist who treats the gallery, the plinth and the colour chart as the actual material.
Heimo Zobernig was born at Mauthen in Austria in 1958 and trained in Vienna in stage design as well as fine art, which is visible in everything he does. He works across painting, sculpture, video, furniture and exhibition architecture, and the recurring subject is the apparatus itself: the plinth, the partition wall, the shelf, the standard colour, the gallery's own proportions, treated as material rather than as support. He emptied the Austrian pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale down to a black ceiling and floor. He taught for many years at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
A market principally in Austria, Germany and Switzerland with strong institutional standing and a comparatively quiet auction record. Paintings — frequently monochromes, grids or works using standard industrial colours on canvas — lead, alongside the sculptural furniture and shelf pieces. Because the works often use commercial paint and untreated industrial materials deliberately, surface irregularities and visible manufacture are original and are regularly misreported as flaws. Editions and multiples exist and should be distinguished from unique work.
If you own a work by Heimo Zobernig
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