25/08/2021 – 09/10/2021
“christoph raitmayr studied under bruno gironcoli and is thus a sculptor by training. as such, he creates minimalist sculptures in which the superficially applied model-like quality and the associated trivialisation ultimately condense into a far-reaching network of associations and references. the artist takes the models for his architectural models from relevant publications. the range of models extends from american colonial architecture to designs for the werkbundsiedlung in vienna in 1932 or the famous dutch architect and designer gerrit rietveld. arranged individually on cardboard pedestals or in groups on coloured wooden bases, raitmayr relates them to photographs taken from the internet of clouds, waves, trees, coasts and seascapes, reproductions of works of art or representational accessories. raitmayr thus deprives the houses of their exemplariness and singularity and transforms them, as it were, into portraits of personal and collective designs . …raitmayr proceeds in a similarly stringent manner as in the sculptures, also in the drawings. here as there, the artist imbues the architectural models with new contents or opens up new spaces and ways of looking at things, as if he wanted to subject them to an ironic-critical and even highly personally charged examination by alienating them….” (excerpt from the text “the inversion of the gaze. comments on the works of christoph raitmayr” by günther dankl)
