“Arnulf Rainer, Hermann Nitsch, Gottfried Helnwein, to name just a few,” says the musician and painter Parov Stelar, whose real name is Marcus Füreder. He is listing a selection of those Austrian artists whose works have been attracting attention all over the world for years. “Austria is better in art than in skiing anyway,” says the 47-year-old. In his more than 40 paintings and overpainted photographs, which can be seen in the Schloss Parz Gallery since yesterday, the artist, who trained as a painter/graphic artist at the Linz Art University, points out and comments on social and psychological devastation with relish, but always with impressive intimacy. Hope always shines through in these works. Sometimes the impression arises that the viewer is looking into a mirror that is able to reflect one’s own psyche, which has been battered by the pandemic and war. Parov Stelar: “What I cannot put into words is discharged in my music and in my painting.”
The Mühlviertler music producer has long since received global attention for his unmistakably swinging beats. Since his exhibition in the summer of 2021 at the Francisco Carolinum in Linz, his international path as a visual artist has also been mapped out.
From a still camera spurting blood to heads exploding in a burst of red, a hypocrite’s clasped hands and the sensual-mystical ‘Tanja Cycle’, these new works (prices up to €59,500) penetrate the protective shell of the superficial.
Compared to the musical routine, he still feels at an exhibition with new works “as if I were hanging up my underwear,” he says in an interview with OÖN. Quotations from the artists named above can be seen in all of his works, without damaging the uniqueness of Parov Stelar’s visual language.
After many years on the Balearic Islands, Parov Stelar is planning to move from Mallorca back to the Mühlviertel (near Lichtenberg). In September 2023, the monstrous “Metropolinz” project will also take place in the Linz tobacco factory. Based on Fritz Lang’s monumental film “Metropolis” (1927), music and painting by Parov Stelar are to merge into an artistic symbiosis.
Exhibition, Schloss Parz Gallery: “PAROV STELAR – thank you, good”until November 13, Mon., Wed., Fri. 10 a.m. – 1 p.m./2 p.m. – 5 p.m., Sun.: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m Info: www.galerieschlossparz.at
Source: Nachrichten
