Venetian Blinds, 1980

Kiki Kogelnik   Emerging artists

Kiki Kogelnik is an Austrian artist born on January 22, 1935 in Bleiburg and died on February 1st, 1997 in Vienna. Her work includes painting, sculpture and installations. She is considered an Austrian representative of pop art. Kiki Kogelnik started her studies in 1954 at the University of Applied Arts of Vienna and then a year later, she joined the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna. She belongs to a circle of young avant garde artists besides Arnulf Rainer, Wolfgang Hollegha, Josef Mikl, Markus Prachensky, Maria Lassnig who met at the Nachst St. Stephan d'Otto Mauer Gallery. Where she presented her abstract works which were inspired on the work of Serge Poliakoff.

In 1958 and 1959, she met American artist Sam Francis in Paris, with whom she moved to America in 1961. She spent a year in Santa Monica and then moved to New York in 1962. There she frequented Roy Linchtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, Tom Wesselmann. Kogelnik's work is strongly influenced by the pronounced colors and supports of pop art. Unlike many pop artists, she avoids the glorification of consumption and the representation of everyday objects.

During the 70s, She focused on the subject of the woman and her image criticizing her role advertisings. She treats feminist ideas with irony and with the freshness of pop aesthetics. In 1978, she did a short film about punk artists Jim Carroll at the CBGB. During the 80s, her paintings included ordinary objects, human limbs and characters in her new aesthetic approach. During the 90s, human limbs were more and more present and the faces more abstracts. She also did glass sculptures, drawings, and engravings criticizing mercantilism and decoration.