Transformation and Return
Exactly one year ago, he appeared before the public for the first time at the Pohlhammer Gallery in Steyr. After two smaller exhibitions, he is now reflecting on his progress: Until March 10, works by Hermann Staudinger, the 1963-born artist from Schwanenstadt, can be seen at the Lebzelterhaus in Vöcklabruck under the title "Dying and Becoming," works created since 1988.
Dying and Becoming: Every ending is a new beginning. Thus, the images in the first room can be understood as a parable. There is the house, built according to strict rules. There is the fence. But it leaves what contains and constrains it at the same time. The house changes its position, swaps its color with the ground, transforms its shape. Love, sex, tenderness: images made of faux fur. Sometimes only in dark times: sequins make Heine's words sparkle in braille on black velvet. A bird's nest with silver balls. Self-portraits: He leaps in five phases from a crouch to a jump, depicting his body in thirty variations. People: He gathers prints of 49 color photos of residents of Schwanenstadt that he displayed in the summer.
As a child, he suffered an accident that mutilated his right hand. The hand, therefore, is a dominant theme in his art. In 49 sheets, he presented both of his hands last year. The originals are bound into the 49 catalogs. Even now, he shows his hands in steles, photos, and plaster casts.
However, what strikes me most are the images from the series "Cloudheaded." With infinite patience, he has drawn thousands of rings on giant formats, creating a surface dotted with white specks. A tighter pencil control and firmer pressure here and there densify the image. Thus, cloud images emerge that momentarily halt time.
Neues Volksblatt, March 7, 1995