"Erste Bank Budapest (Skizze)"

ink on photocopy

Based on a classical b/w architecture photography of the Bauhaus period, Farnz Riedl develops a combination of photography and drawing. In the search for his photographic motifs, Riedl is primarily interested in the "banal" architecture of the 1960s and 1970s, which is characterised by monotony and stereotypical tectonic concepts. The structure of horizontal and vertical, as well as the striking contours of buildings encourage the artist to pursue these structures and to think them further in fine, freehand grid drawings.
(Margit Zuckriegl, 2019)

In the series "Architectural Extensions" (2012), the reference to space takes on less significance. In the foreground is a more self-reflective examination. The photographs are mostly of buildings that serve the monetary economy, such as tax offices, banks and insurance companies. They are austere buildings of the 60s and 70s, whose architecture seems to refer to their task in terms of content. It is often architectural details such as window edges or light louvres that give the impression that the building could potentially be continued indefinitely. Riedl's trick is to update the architecture of the buildings in a kind of "picture editing", for example by continuing the arrangement of the windows in drawings. This correlation of "inside" and "outside" is further intensified in some of the works, in that the drawing is simultaneously reminiscent of the silhouette of a mountain and a statistical curve.
(Franz Riedl)