Tone Fink

The Infeld House of Culture in Halbturn pays tribute to Tone Fink on his 75th birthday and exhibits works from the protagonist from the 1970s to 2018.

Energetic, imaginative and versatile, he is a pictorial lateral thinker. For Tone Fink, the boundaries between art genres exist in order to be skipped, because he needs variety and is a draftsman, painter, object artist, actionist and performer, filmmaker and art teacher.

The art historian Otto Breicha wrote about Tone Fink: “He always loves it riskier. His drawings are an interweaving of fictitious figures. Life is struggle and spasm, a killing scramble. His art does not reproduce anything obvious, but makes the unseen evident."

Thoughtful and humorous, Tone Fink makes the unseen visible with different techniques: delicate watercolors and pencil drawings, thick gouaches, powerful pen and chalk drawings. He scribbles and scratches with all means, even when he applies acrylic centimeters thick with a brush. He works into the paper, scratches it, wears it out, tears and penetrates it and then glues it back together - like a surrealist paramedic - to heal the wounds.

For Tone Fink, the deep and fatal pitfall in the visual arts and in life seems to be dependence on the intellect rather than inspiration. He writes: "For me, art is also a rediscovery of childhood. I'm on my way to experience without going in circles. In all the arts, technical skill is a danger, just like in real life."

Tone Fink has maintained a penchant for the playful over the years. He also seduces every viewer to play and lets the works speak for themselves. And they also do so in their mysteriousness and leave the viewer speechless confused.

The exhibited works on paper and canvas come from the Infeld Collection and from the artist's possession.

Tone Fink Short Biography
Born on 1 January 1944 in Schwarzenberg, Vorarlberg, Austria.
Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (with Prof. Max Weiler and Prof. Max Melcher) in Vienna.
Lecturer at the International Summer Academy for Fine Arts in Salzburg.
Tone Fink lives and works as a draftsman, painter, object maker, performance and film artist in Vienna and Fußach, Vorarlberg.