“I’ve always considered geometric abstraction a reservoir, a palette that has been made available by modernity. My main attraction to these forms initially was their availability. I never considered them to be sacred or mysterious — quite the contrary. It seemed to me that modernity provided us with signs that were meant to be used, whether for understanding the world or for constructing an art piece.” (John M Armleder)

Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman is pleased to announce the fifth solo exhibition of the internationally renowned artist John M Armleder. With Wavelength, Armleder presents a carefully curated selection of older and more recent works. Here, well-known furniture sculptures and geometricizing works from the 1980s meet current pour and puddle paintings as well as innovative spray techniques created both with and without stencils. A particular highlight of the exhibition is an expansive wall painting measuring around 80 m2 - a wave in pantone purple [252U] - which permeates the entire exhibition space, gives the show its title and connects the individual exhibits to each other in an unconventional way.

Armleder has had a decisive influence on postmodern art practice and is considered one of the most important conceptual, performance and object artists of the present day. His works combine chance and concept, high culture and everyday life as well as the profound and the banal to create a uniquely ambivalent experience. Based on the formal repertoire of modernism - such as Constructivism, Op Art, Pop, gestural and abstract painting and design - he provides poetic and ironic commentaries on our contemporary reality and the status of art.

John M Armleder first became widely known at the end of the 1970s with his Furniture Sculptures, in which high-quality pieces of furniture and everyday objects are modified and/or combined with abstract or geometric paintings. He thus contributed to the revival of Dadaism and to the discussion about the artistic value of everyday objects. In the 1980s, he created his first wall paintings, which are mostly monochrome and reduced to a largely geometric formal language. They look like postmodern, contemporary frescoes and repeatedly raise questions about the boundaries and transitions between craft, design and painting.

Works such as Optional and Nélombo complement the exhibition as new pourpaintings and testify to Armleder's deep interest in controlled chance. Painting supports and canvases, which can be over a dozen meters long, are worked on from above by a mobile scaffold with containers of acrylic, lacquer and spray paint. With this all-over-action painting method, Armleder joins the ranks of masters such as Jackson Pollock and Morris Louis. Armleder's typical puddle paintings, in which playful, intuitive action merges with deliberate gestures, appear similar and yet different. Various substances are used in the creation of these works: varnishes, paints, solvents as well as glitter, toys and small decorative items, which are tipped onto the canvas lying on the floor, mixed and placed at an angle before the paint finally solidifies.