Rudolf Polanszky

Rudolf Polanszky grew up in Vienna in the 1960s amidst the Vienna Actionists, to whom he responded in his early works with ironic actions. Since the 1970s, he has been exploring complex perceptual processes and experimental setups. Even his early works, such as his Schweinsfettzeichnungen (pig fat drawings) or Sprungfederbilder (images made with spiral springs), oscillate between control and intuition, chance and intention. The artist’s aim was to break down existing patterns of thought, restructure them, and disrupt familiar visual habits. His practice can be understood as an ongoing bprocess of recognition in which materials, forms, and contexts of meaning are shifted and continually reconfigured within open systems.

The exhibition features several collages, material-based works, and video pieces by Polanszky. These works reflect his interest in observing various artistic practices in order to circumvent ​“externally determined,” unconscious influences on behavior and the creative process. By limiting himself to specific methods, he sought to systematically examine and describe the structure of the results emerging from these processes.

On view are four videos from the series Der musikalische Affe (The Musical Monkey). In these works, Polanszky explores — drawing on the intersection of ​“evolutionary genealogy” and an abstract musical impulse — the relationship between physically mediated perception and non-verbal cultural experience. In the 1980 – 83 version, the artist uses the medium of Super 8 film and develops a method in which he duplicates himself. To do this, he doubles the left and right sides of the footage of his head by flipping them in negative and reassembling them. He himself described this as an abstract play of ideas without a fixed goal. Instead, a kind of second level of experience emerges. This doubling can also be seen in the collage Oswald Wiener trifft Oswald Wiener und diskutiert die Taniyama/​Shimura Vermutung (Oswald Wiener Meets Oswald Wiener and Discusses the Taniyama/​Shimura Hypothesis), in which Polanszky depicted his friend Wiener in this manner. The two were in lively exchange with one another and grappled with similar questions, including those concerning perception. Music also connected them, as it represented another form of expression and thought for both of them.

In Der musikalische Affe II / Gedächtnis und Musik (The Musical Monkey II / Memory and Music), the installation consists of several shorter videos in which Polanszky makes music in various ways, sometimes in experimental setups with wires that recall other works by the artist. The reference to memory also brings to mind Wiener’s explorations. In Der musikalische Affe III / Stück für Tiere (The Musical Monkey III / Piece for Animals), Polanszky literally makes music for animals, pursuing the idea here of tapping into an expanded form of perception through the exchange of brainwaves that extends beyond the boundaries of one’s own species. The work raises questions about communication, perception, and translatability between different life forms.

Illustration from Der musikalische Affe II / Gedächtnis und Musik, ca. 2001
Photographs, pencil, felt-tip pen, ballpoint pen on paper, mounted on wood
130 × 160 cm, framed

Illustration from Der musikalische Affe III / Stück für Tiere, ca. 2001
Photographs, pencil, felt-tip pen, ballpoint pen on paper, mounted on wood
130 × 160 cm, framed

Der musikalische Affe, 1978 – 79
S‑8 Film, video, color, with sound
3:47 min.

Der musikalische Affe II / Gedächtnis und Musik, 1985 – 89
Video, film, photo collage, color, with sound
5:04 min.

Der musikalische Affe III / Stück für Tiere, 2000
Video, color, with sound
6:45 min.

Modelle für transaggregate Strukturen, 2006-07
Video and photo collage, color, with sound
10:57 min.

Oswald Wiener trifft Oswald Wiener und diskutiert die Taniyama/​Shimura Vermutung, ca. 2000
Photo collage
80 x 50 cm
Courtesy Ingrid Wiener, Kapfenstein

All works Courtesy of the artist, Vienna