MAX FREUND | Sommersprossen

Max Freund’s first solo exhibition at the SALON of Galerie Andreae is titled “Freckles,” a title borrowed from his reunion with a childhood (anti-)heroine, Pippi Longstocking (from *Pippi Långstrump*, 1945, by Astrid Lindgren). The freckled Pippi Longstocking serves less as a nostalgic reference than as a model for a different way of approaching the world. She questions life paths and authority; she is independent and rebellious, yet at the same time generous and kind. She is guided not by norms, but by potential and imagination. This is also where Freund’s artistic research begins: as a practice that does not merely depict reality and collective memory, but expands and recodes them.

Freund conceives of images as peculiar constants of our civilization, as repositories of time, cultural echoes, and personal memories that negotiate both the past and possibility. In a present marked by constant image production, painting continues to shape contemporary art discourse. The artist, who lives and works in Vienna, views his image-based practice as a representation—or even an expansion—of reality, one that feeds fantasy and abstract, nonlinear thought processes into our reality.

Max Freund (*1992) lives and works in Vienna. In 2017, he completed his studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna under Prof. Judith Eisler. His paintings are featured in numerous international exhibitions, projects, and collections across Europe.