We are happy to announce the exhibition So What by the Austrian artist Otto Zitko in our Berlin gallery. The exhibition presents a highly personal selection of new and early works in which the performative act of painting emerges as a defining, enduringprinciple over a long period.

The art magazine Monopol once referred to Otto Zitko as the "Lord of the Lines." He himself says: "Sometime in the late 1980s, I started painting a line and never stopped." This line has since run through all his works. He paints it on canvases, aludibond panels, walls, and ceilings. He lets it flow freely and intuitively, depending on how he feels and what he perceives at the moment.

Like a seismograph, Zitko captures with this never- ending line what he absorbs from his surroundings, his environment, or global events. In this way, fascinating, shimmering webs emerge that captivate viewers, touch them emotionally, and never let go.

The exhibition title So What could be understood as a statement of meditative serenity in the face of the ever-increasing pressures of our time. In an accelerated world that constantly demands topicality and is driven by the perpetual urge for relevance—the need to continuously create something new and stay up-to- date—Zitko does not withdraw from this race passively but counters it with the rhythm of his own line, which arises from constant repetition and intuitive action.

Despite the density of the lines, their gestural quality remains intact. The line is not only a formal element but also a reflection of the artist’s physical presence, manifesting in every stroke and every movement. It records the physical and mental state of its creator, conveys moods and observations, and reflects both universal and personal questions.

For Zitko, it is not just about the line but always about the space that carries it. This becomes particularly impressive when viewing his large-scale in situ drawings, where the line extends across spatial distances, wall projections, and niches. Zitko applies this principle to his Aludibond and canvas works as well, where the line networks never seem to end but rather extend beyond the edges. Art critic Jan Avgikos sees in this an expression of rebellion against the constraints of pictorial perception paradigms: "We are witnessing what might be considered the spectacular consequences of an escape—an escape from the limits imposed by the body, a breakout from the confines of the panel painting and frame, from the two-dimensional exhibition setting." Zitko’s line thus appears to liberate itself from the traditional boundaries of the image and expand into space, as if attempting to transcend the limits of artistic representation—an escape that enables a new perception of space and line.

In the exhibition So What, Otto Zitko presents eleven particularly striking works that he has created over the past 30 years and that hold deep personal significance for him—including new, current works in which "his" line seems to be searching for a way out of the confusions and contradictions of our time.

Otto Zitko was born in 1959 in Linz and studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. His monumental spatial drawings can be found on the walls of museums, restaurants, churches, and other institutions worldwide. Numerous international art institutions and biennials have dedicated solo exhibitions to him or presented his works in major surveys on the theme of "abstraction," including the Art Museum of China in Beijing, the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, the Museum of Art in Tucson (Arizona), the Kunsthalle Bern, the Secession in Vienna, the Manifesta in St. Petersburg, the Triennale India in New Delhi, the Albertina in Vienna, the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki.