Influenced both by the West American art scene – in 1999 he created the installation titled “Life / Boat” in the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, jointly with Raymond Pettibon and Jason Rhoades – and by music subculture, Hans Weigand draws on personalities from media and pop culture. Moving between fine and applied arts, he fathoms identities and projection surfaces of society and reacts to everyday phenomena, which he then reduces to absurdity in seemingly utopian scenarios. Motifs taken from religion and war, scenes of catastrophe and violence, borrowings from comics and film, the world of surfers, settings from nature and urban landscapes, all create a curious collection of the present.

Curator Bärbel Vischer

The series titled ARTISTS IN FOCUS shows the essential work categories of key contemporary artists in dedicated solo presentations. A crucial aspect here is the carrying out of necessary acquisitions through sponsors to extend and expand positions already in the collection. Such purchases have become impossible due to the MAK’s precarious financial situation since the transformation of the museum into a scientific state institution.

#1 Arnulf Rainer | #2 Alfons Schilling | #3 Padhi Frieberger | #4 Franz West | #5 Heimo Zobernig | #6 Franz Graf | #7 Liam Gillick | #8 Hans Weigand | #9 Plamen Dejanoff