Wilhelm Sasnal

HAUSER & WIRTH
Press Release
Wilhelm Sasnal
Hauser & Wirth Zürich
19 March – 21 May 2016
Opening: Friday 18 March 2016, 6 – 8 pm
‘Painting is a natural activity, it’s primal. I think images aren’t important because of the numbers that
surround us. But painting has a chance. There is always painting, like there’s song. I don’t think it
needs speculation as to whether it is alive or dead... With film I am not only looking for the story but
also for the language, how to depict a certain state of being.’
– Wilhelm Sasnal
Hauser & Wirth Zürich presents a solo exhibition of new and recent works by Wilhelm Sasnal, the preeminent painter and film-maker known for his incongruous and quietly unsettling portrayal of our collective
surroundings and history. The exhibition will showcase a large number of new works informed by his recent
travels to America’s southern states, and the events and crises currently dominating world affairs. Extracts
from the artist’s latest feature length film, which is inspired by Albert Camus’s novel ‘The Stranger’ (1942),
form the axis of the presentation.
There is a persistent preoccupation in Sasnal’s work to stay engaged with the world we live in, and perhaps
more importantly, to connect the present with the past. At once curiously personal and coolly detached,
Sasnal subjectively and intimately interprets the topical.
Drawing on found images from newspapers and magazines, the Internet, billboards or his personal
surroundings, Sasnal’s paintings act as an archive to the mass of sprawling images that flood contemporary
society. In applying a concise, photorealist approach to this eclectic subject matter, he captures stolen
moments in time – his unusual cropping and graphic approach to light and colour suggest a camera’s gaze,
imbuing the canvases with a filmic quality. In Sasnal’s latest series of paintings, issues relating to race, religion
and the notion of ‘other’, surface. Motifs such as birds, cowboy boots and corporate logos invite the viewer
to make associations with the current political climate, but, as in his films, the paintings navigate between
figuration and abstraction, eschewing a definitive narrative or agenda. The power of Sasnal’s painting lies in
this sense of distance created between the viewer and underlying story. Through abstraction or empty space,
he generates a disquieting absence of emotional engagement.
HAUSER & WIRTH
Sasnal has long worked in film alongside his painting, viewing it as a complimentary practice and welcoming
the alternative challenges that it brings. Film’s affinity with reality, and therefore its ability to provoke, also
appeals to the artist. Over the past year, Sasnal has been working with Anka, his wife and long-time
collaborator, on producing his fourth feature length film – ‘The Sun, the Sun Blinded Me’. For the exhibition
in Zurich, an edited extract from one scene in the film is projected onto the gallery walls, creating a loop of
compelling images that encapsulate the essence of the paintings on display.
The film borrows its trajectory from Albert Camus’s novel ‘The Stranger’ (1942), but the setting is Poland
today, shot in Krakow and on the Baltic coast. The story also takes inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen’s
dark fairytale ‘The Shadow’ (1847). Camus’s novel is narrated by Meursault, a French Algerian who, along
with his friend, enters a confrontation with an Arab man on the beach. After initially preventing his friend from
killing ‘the Arab’, he later returns to shoot him. While awaiting the execution of his death sentence, the reader
learns that Meursault had no discernible reason for his actions and feels no guilt or remorse. The tale is
existential in tone, pertaining to Camus’s philosophy on the absurdity of human existence, which he believed
has no meaning or purpose.
In the hands of Sasnal, ‘the Arab’ is a black man hiding from border control and ‘Meursault’ first decides
to shelter the man in his home, only to realise that this was in his imagination. The encounter is repeated,
and on this occasion the man is killed by ‘Meursault’. In contrast to Camus’s story, the court diminishes the
murder charges, reasoning that the crime was self-defence against a foreign criminal. Erudite and unabashed,
Sasnal’s film explores the ever-salient question of what it means to be foreign today.
HAUSER & WIRTH
About the Artist
Wilhelm Sasnal was born in 1972 in the small town of Tarnow, Poland. He studied architecture at the Krakow
Polytechnic University (1992 – 1994) and painting at the The Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts (1994 –
1999). He lives and works in Krakow.
Sasnal’s recent solo exhibitions include ‘Wilhelm Sasnal. Paintings’, Qiao Space 2555, Shanghai, China
(2015); ‘Take Me To The Other Side’, Castle Arts, Lismore, Ireland (2014); Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
(2012); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England (2011); K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen,
Dusseldorf, Germany (2009); Hauser & Wirth Zürich (2009); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
(2006); and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Malaga, Spain (2009), which subsequently toured to the Sara
Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland (2010). His work has also been featured in various international group
exhibitions and in 2006 he received the prestigious Vincent van Gogh Award.
Between 6 October and 30 December 2016, Fond Régional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC) Auvergne, ClermontFerrand, France will stage a solo exhibition of new works by Sasnal, which will then travel to FRAC Haute
Normandie, Rouen, France in January 2017.
Press Contacts:
Amelia Redgrift
[email protected]
+44 207 255 8247
Raphie Varley
[email protected]
+44 207 255 8986
Hauser & Wirth
Limmatstrasse 270, Zurich 8005
Gallery hours:
Monday to Friday, 11 am – 6 pm
Saturday, 11 am – 5 pm
www.hauserwirth.info
#hauserwirth
Copyright and Courtesy Credits:
Killing an Arab 1
2016
Oil on canvas
160 x 200 cm / 63 x 78 3/4 in
Untitled
2015
Oil on canvas
160 x 220 cm / 63 x 86 5/8 in
Palm Bay
2013
Oil on canvas
86 x 106.7 cm / 33 7/8 x 42 in
Untitled (after Alex Colville)
2015
Oil and lacquer spray on canvas
190 x 190 cm / 74 3/4 x 74 3/4 in
Killing an Arab (film stills)
2015
2-channel video installation
16 mm transferred to HD, 3 min 25 sec
© Wilhelm Sasnal
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth