Virtual Museum of Political Art

New Constructivism - Politics

Characteristic of the painting style of Horvath is the coding of faces into areas of equal brightness, but divided into different shapes and colours. This creates a special effect: in bright daylight and close by one usually recognizes only a colourful tangle of plant-like shapes, and only a more careful examination reveals a face. However, if looked at in dimmer light or from a distance, the picture looks almost like a realistic black and white photograph and the represented person appears in the foreground. Thus, the pictures change their character dynamically, dependent on the physiology of human vision. The artist calls this style the “New Constructivism”.

Werner Horvath's paintings have been very much influenced by political events like the student revolts in the sixties, Vietnam and the "spring revolt" in Prague. Later his interest was focussed on the "Clash of Civilizations" and the peace-movement. In 2009 he was working for "Linz - European Capital of Culture". Now his mind is free for new experience.

List of exhibitions

    Werner Horvath:

"Che Guevara". Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm, 2000.

"The Garden of Revolution: Che Guevara". Oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2002.
These two images by Werner Horvath were also published in "More than Medicine", Fall 2003, Medical World Communications, NJ - USA, in an article by Grace K. Henry titled "Che Guevara - A Revolutionary Doctor". It was also printed in the  book "Living Large" by Earl Large, Panoply Publishing, Chandler, ISBN 978-1-949161-97-6, Arizona 2021 (Fig.56, p.84, 225).

"Demons of Revolution - Che Guevara". Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm, 2010.

'Greetings from Lenin' depicts the Genesis of Socialist thought. From the lower left, Marx and Engels, moving in clockwise fashion to Lenin and Stalin, continuing to more contemporary Eastern Bloc leaders (Khrushchev, Brechnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin).

This painting is also published in Heber Ferraz-Leite: "Malende Ärzte Österreichs", Selva-edition, Amstetten 2000, ISBN.3-9010-4041-2.

A prophetical painting at the beginning of this war - incredible cruelty previewn. (The painting is from 1993!)
This painting is the cover image of a conceptual work in History by Danielle Siegenthaler and Karsten Steiger, University Bern, 2005. 

A review of the history of the eastern part of Germany beginning at the end of the second world war.

The "spring revolt" in Prague was suppressed in 1968 by the troops of the Warsaw-pact, but later Czechoslovakia was liberated: the pencil of Vaclav Havel destroyed hammer and sickle - this was called the "velvet-revolution".
This painting is also published in Heber Ferraz-Leite: "Malende Ärzte Österreichs", Selva-edition, Amstetten 2000, ISBN.3-9010-4041-2. It was also published in "Die Zukunft Europas" by BSA Austria and the Maria Jahoda - Otto Bauer Institut, printed by Gutenberg, Linz 2014.