Motorways and deserted squares, urban settings that are at the same time subject and habitat for the two artists Wesley Willis and Ingo Giezendanner. Both share the interest for urban sceneries and translate them by means of drawing in their own idiosyncratic manner on paper, cardboard or exhibition walls.
The name Wesley Willis has long been familiar to an underground public through his music. Apart from the musical activity the US artist who died in 2003 had produced thousands of drawings of his hometown Chicago. The always-recurring motifs drawn by ballpoint, coloured pencil or felt tip pen compellingly show Chicago's architecture and the throbbing activity of the Midwest metropolis. The characteristic skyline, the lakeside, the freeways with the congestion of trucks as well as the uniform fast food chains had been fascinating Willis and were transformed in an intimate view of American city life. The Kunst Halle is now first in the position to present an extensive show, which focuses particularly on Willis' cityscapes.
Ingo Giezendanner (*1975) however is a flaneur. He uses drawing in order to document the social milieu and the impressions he gathers during his travelling activity as a global vagabond. Usually in black and white his work recalls comic-strip aesthetics. By deploying various techniques and formats, he furthermore attempts to expand the media of drawing. Single stills can thus also lead to video-animation. Specifically for the exhibition at the Kunst Halle, Giezendanner zooms in on the city of St. Gallen: He creates a drawing installation in which he combines several images of places and streets into a city portrait. Thus the result is a view on the Ostschweizer Metropolis that does not aim to be a representative portrayal of picture postcard motifs like the cathedral or the Stiftsbibliothek. In the accurate style of the calm observer, he rather depicts often-unnoticed places and streets that usually escape the passer-by's attention.
Wesley Willis' vibrating views in combination with Ingo Giezendanner's precise and clearly outlined black and white drawings open up a vivid interplay. Contrasts and differences become visible allowing an insight into the obsessive work with the medium of drawing. Yet, "WW vs. GRRRR" also demonstrates an attitude towards urban life that is not limited to the question about the comparability of two artistic positions both rooted in subculture. Moreover questions about general exhibition practices of art institutions are posed and challenged.