Attersee was born on August 28, 1940 as Christian Ludwig in Bratislava (Slovakia). He chose his stage name from 1966 in reference to his success as a sailing athlete, where he became three times Austrian national champion. As early as 1951 Attersee began to write short novels, to compose first songs, to draw comics and to design stage sets. From 1957 to 1963 he studied stage architecture and painting at the Vienna University of Applied Arts. There he maintained contacts with the group of Viennese Actionists, in particular with Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch and Gerhard Rühm, in whose actions he also participated.
Between 1963 and 1965 Attersee’s first picture cycles, “Weather Pictures” and “Rainbow Anomalies” were created. Weather and natural elements also played an essential role in his other works. In 1965 Attersee moved to Berlin, where he showed his first exhibition. By 1972 he created photo cycles with narcissistic-ironic self-portraits as well as paintings and drawings with the typical Attersee “object inventions” such as pubic hair curlers or ploughshare and soup spoons, which show the influence of American Pop Art.
Sensual, imaginative, expressive and funny
Between 1977 and 1980 Attersee stayed in Paris, in 1980 he crossed the Atlantic by ship and developed expressive water imagery from his earlier motifs. Attersee’s works in particular move in cyclical cycles with recurring themes. His work, which alternates between figurative representations and exuberant fantasy, is characterized by a wealth of ideas and sensuality, expressiveness and wit, although the dangers of the decorative are not always avoided.
Attersee’s activities have always been extremely varied: in 1986 he designed Vienna’s first champagne ball in the Konzerthaus, in 1987 a swing for Andre Heller’s “Luna Luna fairground”. For the facade of the Attersee-Haus on Vienna’s Mariahilfer Strasse, which opened in 1996, he designed the 210 square meter mosaic “Weather Trader”, the largest glass mosaic in Europe. Attersee wrapped the Ringturm on Schottenring in foil in 2006, and he worked as a set designer repeatedly, for example with his total work of art “Salome” in Bremen (2008) or for Udo Zimmermann’s “White Rose” in Linz (2015). He loves to “attend” operas, says the artist. In the future he would like to bring Erik Satie’s short opera “Socrate” to the stage as a ballet opera, he told his biographer.
From Kassel to Venice and Vienna to Semmering
For many years Attersee, which has a studio in Semmering, also designed the posters for the women’s ski world cup. In 2018, his poster showing a naked skier caused public outrage and was eventually withdrawn. Attersee explained that he viewed the design for the poster as a work of art “in which the strength, independence and self-confidence of women is shown in a positive way”.
Attersee’s works were shown at Documenta 6 in Kassel in 1977 and at the Venice Biennale in 1984, as well as in more than 500 solo exhibitions in Europe and the USA. Large retrospectives were dedicated to him in Austria in 1997 through the Albertina, in 2005 through the Bank Austria Kunstforum, whose boss Ingried Brugger Attersee is married, and in 2019 at Belvedere 21.
From 1991 to 2009 Attersee was a professor at the Vienna University of Applied Sciences, in 1997 he was awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize, in 2004 he received the renowned German Lovis Corinth Prize, in 2005 the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art, and in 2007 the Silver Commander’s Cross for Services to the federal state of Lower Austria and in 2019 the Great Silver Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria.
A series of exhibitions for the 80s
The 80th birthday of the multi-artist is being celebrated with several exhibitions and an updated edition of his biography. The series of exhibitions will open on August 29 with a large show in the Parz moated castle near Grieskirchen (Upper Austria). In the exhibition entitled “Attersee – Heaven and Earth”, 75 new, previously not shown pictures are juxtaposed with around ten large-format works from the 1980s.
In Vienna, the Ernst Hilger Gallery in Dorotheergasse is dedicating the exhibition “Christian Ludwig Attersee – House in the Jungle” to the artist from September 8th. With the “Äpfelfärber” cycle, over 50 new works will be on view. Another exhibition will follow in November at the Frey Gallery in Salzburg.
Brandstätter Verlag reissued Daniela Gregori and Rainer Metzger’s 2010 biography in the 80s. Ten years after the first publication, the duo of authors went back to the studios and archives of the important contemporary artist and updated them.
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