Alexander Wagner (artist)

Life and work

Alexander Wagner completed his studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin (Berlin University of the Arts) in 2006 having been a ‘Meisterschüler’ there. Even prior to his graduation Wagner took part in group exhibitions in Berlin, Zurich and Istanbul, as well as group shows in the United States and Italy. Alexander Wagner engages predominantly with the subject of painting. Thus drawings, watercolours, silkscreen prints, gouache and acrylic paintings have a fixed place in Wagner’s repertoire. The artist’s work is particularly notable for its formal language. He chooses clean, geometric forms, amongst others, and carries these over into his subjects, "or even onto the picture’s topic, which has no inherent geometry, like clouds or rain, for example," as Friedrich Meschde has explained. Wagner’s works seem thus to be reduced to something essential, using colours as a starting point. His approach to form in his work is also interesting. For example, Alexander Wagner has produced photographs in which a chance description of space in terms of geometry can be recognised, in the form of an everyday object. This can, in turn, serve as the basis for a drawing in which, unlike a photograph, "visible things progress". His newest works are increasingly wall paintings, as have been on display recently in the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, amongst other venues. With this Wagner focuses on the spatial intervention, which relates to the site’s exhibition architecture and changes how this can be experienced spatially.

Alexander Wagner is represented by the gallery RaebervonStenglin in Zürich. He lives and works in Berlin.

Exhibitions (selection)

Grants

Awards

Publications

Links