“THE ART OF ASSUMED INNOCENCE”
Christian Pölzler uses the artist Heidi Popovic as a kind of advance party to make
contact with the observers of his works.
The name Heidi Popovic alone describes his love of ‘ambiguity‘. It is an amalgam of
the nature loving Swiss child star Heidi, whose world seems to exist around the
mountains and the neurotically obsessed psychoanalysts out of Woody Allen’s
comedy What’s new Pussycat? who in the German synchronisation is called Dr.
Nikita Popovic. Who could ever think of such an idea? Only Pölzler, who is an
enthusiastic observer. With wicked enjoyment and an almost solicitous (over
attentive, fussing) and extreme precision the artist approaches his work, from the
world at his feet or at his computer.
A world where the exponents appear friendly.
A world in which TV presenters smiling and full of understanding chat to their victims
- I’m sorry – their guests, so to speak their new best friends for the moment –
humiliated and anatomized. It is a friend camouflaged as Dominatrix. Friends taken
into custody.
In a harmless environment hidden subjects become candidly exposed, exhibited,
surveyed and overheard. The pleasant form, the delusional packaging, turns into an
unrecognizable spitefulness. Friendliness is no longer an expression of goodwill or
courtesy, it is a perfidious trap. This is what occupies Pölzler.
In this sense Christian Pölzler is a grinning pied-piper, using the delayed perception
of his audience, to make them observe what is hidden behind the obvious.
Heidi Popovic is not Christian Pölzler’s alter ego:
Pölzler collects, Popovic forms. For example, how a glorious Biedermaier wallpaper
turns into a composition of Gasmasks, vibrating anal plugs and Kalashnikov’s.
People’s attitudes generally tend to say “ Cucumber yes, Dildo no“ but Christian
Pölzler flatly refuses to discriminate between objects, whether they be a Dildo or a
Garden Gnome, and therefore they are given total asylum in his pictures.
Balanced forms, symmetry and image formation, appealing colours and to the
thousandth of a millimeter precise vector graphics, cradle us into a the assurance
that it is a pleasant encounter and causes one to linger in front of the work. As with a
picture puzzle, when you look you see a different image: carefully ordered laboratory
rats nibble on that sweet baby’s face, a red hole punch closes in on a red stiletto
shoe, a Gerbera is inserted in a condom, and the laughing “party tiger” is made up of
anti/depressant Seroxat pills.
However it would not be in the correct interest of the artist to see ambiguity in all his
works. Sometimes Heidi Popovic is simply explicit or as Sigmund Freud once said,
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.
Christian Pölzler is an artist who is easily liked; he demands from his public neither
analysis nor a reason for his works.
But whoever is interested will discover amazing things. Pölzler tells stories from
Mozart’s Magic Flute, deals with Adornos radical political views, and considers
whether Hannah Arendt’s arrogance is an unmistakable sign of her intelligence.
He allows Baroque and German Romanticism to appear in modern dress and shows
us how Don Giovanni lives today.
His knowledge of proportion, colouring and picture composition and his perfect
technique are the foundations on which the artist Christian Pölzler stands. So it may
come as no surprise to learn that his favourite artist is Caspar David Friedrich.
Some stories are told by Pölzler in just one word, for example, the cigar cutter is
decorated with a Bourbon Lily and he calls the work simply and logically “Marie
Antoinette”!
Various artworks of his can also be entered like a room. Consistently Pölzler does
narrative interior design where the room is conceived as an artwork.
By the way, do you like poodles? Yes? Also minced?
Michael Rainer
Director of „Das Institut für Integrationstherapie“, Vienna
March 2009
NB: When I was a child I knew that Teddy Bears could never bite. However, since my
encounter with Heidi Popovic I am now not so sure!
D O N E
Description Created for the exhibition: Heidi Popovic "fuckrecession", Salzburg 2009
Application Illustrator
Labels Fine Art, Pop Art, Realistic
Times Viewed 398
Approved By itailu
