Austrian Sculpture Park

The Nature of the Austrian Sculpture Park
When sculpture and design get in touch they undergo a reaction
and develop an inter-relation; in the course of time the
story they tell is subject to constant changes. The garden as
a creation by humans but at the same time picture of the ever
growing nature corresponds with the sculptures which are
exposed to weather, embedded in the landscape to which in
turn they respond. The terminology of contemporary sculpture
ranges from abstract sculpture to common household objects,
from anthropomorphic figurations to objects of utility.
The dialogue between sculpture and its location is to render
this terminology visible, i.e. make statements about art,
society, its conflicts and dreams, and at the same time create
a space for encounter.
Timm Ulrich’s Tanzende Bäume (dancing trees) and Mario
Terzic’s Arche aus lebenden Bäumen (ark made of living
trees) – the start of the project – are the most recent projects
of park sculptures. Oswald Oberhuber’s sculpture mounted on
a wall relegates to the fact that since minimal art a sculpture
cannot only stand on the floor, but can also be mounted on
a wall and thus enters a dialogue with paintings. The dialogue
inherent in art, as between painting and space, can also be
enlarged by a dialogue between the forms of art and nature,
as in the sculptures by Fritz Hartlauer and Jörg Schlick.
Standing opposed to one another, they are dealing with the
rules of form, algorithms and growth. To this same category
belong sculptures by Christa Sommerer and Michael Kienzer.
Works of so-called old masters are placed on the landscape
of stairs, facing the sky, representing the pantheon.
The might of this place also heightens Heimo Zobernig’s
tower at the entrance of the sculpture park or the Bicycle
sculpture by Susana Solano. The same goes for a sculpture
by Werner Reiterer, inflating and deflating in its dell, and the
cushion by Hans Kupelwieser placed between hedges as well
as Peter Weibel’s work, where the globe can be experienced as
a suitcase.
Machines of motion like cars (Erwin Wurm), ships (Michael
Schuster), sails (Martin Walde) and aeroplanes (Nancy Rubins)
talk to us about the fate of apparatuses, their failure and
downtime, dreams of perfect society and technology and turn
the landscape into a see or an airport. In corres-pondence
with the afore mentioned are Heinz Gappmayr’s cues to not
yet visible and no longer visible depending on the viewer’s
position; in Yoko Ono’s cross into which a nail can be hammered
and Jeppe Hein’s water sculpture the interaction
between visitor and work of art is once more enhanced.
Thus the Sculpture Park is used as a platform to initiate the
dialogue with contemporary sculpture and make its language
more easily understandable.
Elisabeth Fiedler, Head of the Austrian Sculpture Park
Peter Weibel, Chief Curator of the Austrian Sculpture Park