Ivan Lardschneider learned carving from scratch and even spent several years in his youth as an itinerant wood-carver perfecting traditional techniques with masters of the craft. This command of his material is a sure foundation for his art, yet the success of this artist, who lives and works in the Ladin valley of Val Gardena in South Tyrol amidst the impressive peaks of the Dolomite Alps, is due to the fact that he early on developed and still continues to refine his very own pictorial language. Lardschneider’s confident play with proportions – the word is permissible especially in view of the works presented here – is by no means “over intellectual”, but rather marked by a great deal of humour. It is a kind of humour that is immediately understandable across the borders of countries and cultures. Since his first exhibitions in Bolzano and Berlin in 2006, works by this artist have not only been exhibited in many famous European galleries, but also with great success in India, Hong Kong, and Singapore. And twice already, in 2009 and 2011, Lardschneider was represented at the Biennale in Venice.