Exhibition Walkthrough with Co-Curator Peter Pakesch

Please join us for a walkthrough with Peter Pakesch, Chairman of the Maria Lassnig Foundation and co-curator of our current exhibition, ‘Maria Lassnig, A Painting Survey, 1950 – 2007.’ Peter Pakesch is Chairman of the Maria Lassnig Foundation, dedicated to propagating the extensive works of one of the most important artists in modern times. The Foundation’s central mission is to ensure that Lassnig’s legacy is secured over the long term and that her work is relayed to and increasingly understood by the public. Pakesch opened his eponymous gallery in Vienna in 1981, where he presented first exhibitions of such artists as John Baldessari, Herbert Brandl, IlyaKabakow, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Sol LeWitt, Albert Oehlen, Franz West and Heimo Zobernig. In 1986 he founded the Graz Kunstverein together with the Graz-based cultural policy maker Helmut Strobl, running it as artistic director up to 1988. In 1996 he assumed the post of Director of the Kunsthalle Basel. There he showed first museum exhibitions by young artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Michel Majerus, and Pawel Althamer. From 2003 – 2015, Pakesch was Artistic Director of the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz, the oldest public museum in Austria. Pakesch has also been responsible for various groundbreaking exhibitions at the Kunsthaus Graz, which was opened in 2003 and which likewise belongs to the group of institutions gathered under the Universalmuseum Joanneum. Examples of exhibitions include ‘Warhol Wool Newman – Painting Real und Screening Real – Conner Lockhart Warhol’ (2009); ‘Franz West: Autotheater, Köln – Neapel – Graz,’ (2010), as well as Ai Weiwei (Kunsthaus Graz, 2011); Michelangelo Pistoletto (Neue Galerie Graz, 2012); Heimo Zobernig (Kunsthaus Graz, 2013); Ilya and Emilia Kabakov (Kunsthaus Graz, 2014), as well as the first solo exhibition of the American filmmaker James Benning (Kunsthaus Graz, 2014). In fall 2015 Peter Pakesch finished his work on the lead of the Universalmuseum Joanneum to devote his full time in building up the Maria Lassnig Foundation in Vienna, which was founded at the will of the artist in order to advance the understanding and the distribution of her work. This event is free, but reservation is required. Please click here to reserve a place.