Galerie Elisabeth and Klaus Thoman

The work of the sculptor, who was born in Steyr in 1962, is repeatedly concerned with the most diverse physical fields of tension: for example, those between attraction and distance, order and chaos, function and dysfunction, openness and closedness. Or also about various constellations of carrying and bearing. Christa Benzer, Der Standard, 17.01.2018

Born in 1962 in Steyr, Austria, lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Late 1970s School of Arts Graz. Late 1980s stage design at Westfälisches Landestheater Castrop, Germany; 2004—06 professorship at University of applied Arts Vienna; 2007—2017 Curator of Kunstverein Weikendorf Austria; 2011 ISCP New York. Art awards, a.o. 2001 Otto-Mauer Prize Vienna, 2008 Viktor-Fogarassy-Prize, 2012 Austrian State’s Prize for Applied Arts.

Founded in 1977 in Innsbruck, Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman has been working with important and internationally renowned contemporary artists from Austria, including Bruno Gironcoli, Hermann Nitsch, Walter Pichler, Arnulf Rainer and Franz West. In the 80s the gallery started working with a younger generation of painters – Siegfried Anzinger, Herbert Brandl, Erwin Bohatsch and Gunter Damisch – that were just leaving the academies, later known as “Neue Wilde”. Artists from different media and the neighbouring countries joined the gallery in the 90s and early 2000s: Éva Bodnár, Maria Brunner, Thomas Feuerstein, Michael Kienzer, Florin Kompatscher and Peter Sandbichler. The gallery profile is continuously complemented with significant international positions, always taken in a cultural context: John M Armleder, Günther Förg, Jürgen Klauke, Tal R, Johannes Wohnseifer (2016), Mai-Thu Perret (2020) and Iman Issa (2021). The focus remains to work with artists long-term and to accompany them through their career. In 2011, the gallery opened a large-scale dependance in Vienna’s first district, that next to its major hall also holds a smaller second exhibition space called Seitengalerie. While Elisabeth and Klaus Thoman have been operating as the gallerists for already 40 years, in 2020 a younger generation of directors joined their team, consisting of Maximilian Thoman and Eva Oberhofer. They are now taking care of the space in Vienna as well as continuously adding new positions of another generation to the gallery’s artist list, like Julia Haugeneder and Johannes Kofler. Furthermore a dialogue with emerging artists was started in the foundation of the projectspace tart.vienna, that regularly hosts exhibitions for external artists in the gallery’s Seitengalerie.