(born in Linz in 1959)
Untitled, monogrammed, dated Zi 95 on the reverse, oil-stick on wood, 300 x 150 cm

Provenance:
Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels
Private Collection, Belgium

... Inadvertently, automatically, perhaps intuitively, we respond to friezes of explosively violent gestures, picking up one passage and then another, riding orgiastic rhythms, exploring their episodic qualities. From one perspective, it is a spectacular invasion; from another, it is a risky odyssey. Either way, Zitko’s art aligns with anti-aesthetic impulses that congealed in Modern art in the early 20th century. We might compare the physical aggression and athleticism that foregrounds the production of his art with Futurist performance-I’m thinking, in particular, of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s pugilist matches. Marinetti as boxer, and Zitko as fencer-the two artists share combative approches, with a critical distinction: whereas Marinetti collaborated with others, Zitko fences with himself alone. We can imagine him, in at least one of his guises-fighting with himself as artist, fighting with himself as subject, fighting with architecture, fighting with the world.
from: Lebenslinien von Jan Avgikos, Otto Zitko, Die Konstruktion der Geste, 2007