Art On İstanbul hosts the works of Viennese artist Klaus Mosettig from December 10 to January 4. Having joined the MUMOK collection at a young age, Klaus Mosettig presents his first solo exhibition in Turkey following his recent show at the Saatchi Gallery.
Mosettig’s works revolve around drawing from reflected images. For the artist, slides and reflections form the distinctive contemporary shape of still life. His interest in working with pre-existing images stems from the shapes inherent in ready-made objects. Mosettig’s focus lies not on the potential contextual meaning that the adaptation process, depiction, and production of images may evoke, but solely on the rigorous and abstract approach to arranging both objective and subjective visual information.
By applying oblique shadow traces of varying tones and lengths in a consistent direction, Mosettig reinterprets and reconstructs reflected images. The layering created by visual continuity produces a sense of flatness, while the color palette transforms into a spectrum of blacks, whites, and grays. The exhibition features works from three of Mosettig’s series: “Projection Portrait”, “Albers Painting”, and “Pollock Painting”.
The contrast between Pollock’s fervent, expressionist approach to painting and Mosettig’s slow, meticulous execution, combined with the constantly shifting quality of projected slide images, results in drawn images that stand apart. Compared to Pollock’s works, Mosettig’s pieces exhibit a strikingly different material quality and reduced detail, making them appear more like visual representations than physical gestures.
Pollock’s natural drips and splatters are transformed by Mosettig into oblique shading, creating planar continuity and an entirely new visual and physical microstructure. This transformative approach produces iconic and stunning drawings, leading the viewer into a slow, contemplative, and constantly shifting visual experience.
Joseph Albers, who explored the subjectivity of color, shape, line, ground, and visual perception in his work, created one of his most important series, “Homage to the Square”, by nesting three or four squares of different colors within each other. In his graphite drawings, Mosettig meticulously traces over Albers’ paintings. Considering that Albers’ defining features are color, the subjective perception of color, the density of the painting, and the character of the hue, Mosettig deliberately removes Albers’ color usage, stripping away what makes Albers’ work unique, radically inverting its value. In Mosettig’s works, there is no color, no flow of the painting, and no painted area on the canvas—only the gray shading he positions subjectively is visible.
Klaus Mosettig’s solo exhibition can be viewed at Art ON İstanbul from December 10 to January 4.