Ohne Titel V c. 1932

Karl Wiener made this painting, Untitled V, with oil on paper. I imagine him layering those blocks of color one by one, carefully defining those sharp geometric shapes. There’s something so vulnerable and strange about those figures, standing, almost floating, against the stark black backdrop. The colors are bold—that bright orange against the cool gray—but they also feel subdued, like the light is fading. I wonder what Wiener was thinking about as he built up those forms. Those straight lines on the figures feel almost mechanical. I’m curious about the way his process leads him to translate human bodies into geometric structures. Each line, each color choice, feels like a question. What does it mean to represent a person? How can we see them differently through the act of painting? Like Léger or Beckmann, Wiener uses color and line to build a world that’s both familiar and deeply unsettling.