Teilen
130114: Grazer Kunstverein: Josef Bauer – Works 1965 – 2005
Grazer Kunstverein
Josef Bauer – Works 1965 – 2005
07.12.2013 – 23.02.2014
Neck support and fitting piece
By Nina Schedlmayer
Birgit Jürgenssen, Helga Philipp, Florentina Pakosta, Martha Jungwirth: The rediscovering of artists to whom due attention was never given has become almost a sporty discipline during the past years. And rightly so. But the rediscovery of the work of male artists has been given rather less attention.
Exceptions confirm the rule: The Grazer Kunstverein is currently exhibiting the works of Josef Bauer since 1965 (and in addition, the Museum Angerlehner is currently also presenting his works). Perhaps one doesn't anticipate anything really great when one enters the first room; the letters "ORT", cast in iron and weighing 80 kg, are lying in front of a step. Well. But a few steps further on, it's really amazing: on a photo from 1967, a somewhat stout young man poses with a "neck support" – it's an amorphous thing that he's putting around his shoulders. Franz West's "Passstücke” (Fitting Pieces) are not far away, although admittedly created a few years later. Further back, you see Bauer himself on a photo with letters growing from a long batten, fighting – and reminiscent of Erwin Wurm's One Minute Sculptures, but these are also created much later. And it becomes even more sensational: a table with a place setting – but the fork is printed as a photo, completed by a real spoon and the lettering "knife" Joseph Kosuth sends greetings, just like the installation in which Bauer presents a stone, a cast and a photograph of it, as well as its outline. And incidentally, everything created in the 60's.
Bauer isn’t only involved with sculpture, but also with text, with language: he is incessantly dealing with "comprehension" both literally and figuratively, he's invariably concerned about how language distances and abstracts objects. One sees good girls in skirts with huge letters, an inquisitive lad carries a "K" casually under his arm through the meadow. Bauer has never repudiated his country roots; Perhaps the exhibitions in Graz and Linz are just the starting point to the rediscovery of Bauer. You really hope so for his sake.
Grazer Kunstverein
8020 Graz , Palais Trauttmansdorff, Burggasse 4
Tel: + 43 316 83 41 41
Fax: + 43 316 83 41 42
E-mail: office@grazerkunstverein.org
http://www.grazerkunstverein.org
Opening hours: Mon - Fri 10.30 - 18.00 hours, Sat 10.30-16.30 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
 |
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
130114
Grazer Kunstverein
8010 Graz, Palais Trauttmansdorff, Burggasse 4
Tel: + 43 316 83 41 41, Fax: + 43 316 83 41 42
Email: office@grazerkunstverein.org
https://www.grazerkunstverein.org/
Öffnungszeiten: Mi-Fr 11-18 h
Grazer Kunstverein
8010 Graz, Palais Trauttmansdorff, Burggasse 4
Tel: + 43 316 83 41 41, Fax: + 43 316 83 41 42
Email: office@grazerkunstverein.org
https://www.grazerkunstverein.org/
Öffnungszeiten: Mi-Fr 11-18 h
