(born 1959 in Graz) / (Steyr 1955–2000 Berlin)
Untitled (two parts), one part monogrammed and dated on the reverse HB 84/85 and inscribed 8 Blihal 4, as well as RI and LII, oil on canvas, each 180 x 145 cm, overall dimensions 180 x 290 cm, on stretcher, (K)

Full-page colour illustration in:
Peter Weibel/Günther Holler-Schuster, Herbert Brandl, Neue Galerie Graz, Hatje Cantz, 2002, pp. 64/65 and mentioned on p. 61

Provenance:
From an Austrian Collection

Whilst the emancipation of colour from natural objects, that is, the creation of absolute colour which is free from the object, was revolutionary and relevant for the progress of modernity in fine art, it is now legitimate and necessary for the post-modern experience if we want to give the word ‘post-modern’ a progressive meaning, to locate the colour in the dubious zone of objects again. In addition to an independent use of lines and surfaces, it was the autonomy of colours that radicalised the evolution of art and led it towards abstraction. In a space without air or signs, where forms could no longer follow the dictates of objects, internal references replaced external ones. The guidelines of artistic creation came no longer from the outside, from the external world, but from within, from the inside world. In lieu of an external necessity linked to the object, the aim was “inner spiritual necessity”. According to Kandinsky, “That is beautiful which corresponds to an inner spiritual necessity”. Hence, to describe Brandl’s paintings as landscapes of the soul, colourful emotional journeys, not only misses this new ontological redefinition of the relationship between colour and form – which seems to me central for Brandl as a major representative of these new colour painters – but it also still reveals the influence of a fin-de-siècle aesthetic which considers colour as the psychical equivalent of an inner reality. After the liberation of colour from the world of objects, today’s goal is to emancipate it from the inner world as well, in order to proclaim the autonomy of colour from inner necessity and all inner reference...
Peter Weibel, Farbe und Zeit,
from the mentioned literature