Elmar Trenkwalder: Sculptures is on view at the Academy of Ceramics Gmunden, Gmunden
September 27, 2024 – March 8, 2025
A successful ongoing collaboration between the OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH and Gmundner Keramik has made it possible to exhibit the work of Elmar Trenkwalder, arguably the best-known Austrian ceramic artist in the world.
On the occasion of the Salzkammergut’s year as European Capital of Culture, the Academy of Ceramics Gmunden has been presenting throughout 2024 special highlights that have delighted more than 25,000 visitors to date.
For more than three decades, Trenkwalder has been captivating viewers with ceramic pieces that exude a fascinating ambiguity in terms of both appearance and content. Developed from drawings, his monumental ceramic sculptures display a fantastic richness of detail that is reminiscent of magnificent Baroque and Rococo architecture or of Asian formal abundance.
Trenkwalder’s construction method is based more on architecture than the usual ceramic processes, enabling him to produce opulent, expansive sculptures marked by a virtuoso handling of the material that pushes the boundaries of stability. The exhibition features ten large ceramic sculptures and installations that offer an overview of Elmar Trenkwalder’s oeuvre, ranging from older works, to the advances he made in France, to new pieces created expressly for the show.
Elmar Trenkwalder never explains his works. He allows us to discover for ourselves figures and faces in his exuberant biomorphic cosmos. The realms of dreams and the unconscious, the melding of a wide range of aesthetic influences, the creation of the artist’s very own visual world and an unmistakable formal canon—all play an important role here.
Elmar Trenkwalder began working with the medium of clay during eight years spent in Cologne. It was at that time that he created his Werkverzeichnis (WVZ) series. By consecutively titling his works WVZ (catalogue raisonné), he expresses his skepticism towards language as a means of interpretation and his thinking in visual terms. Starting with drawing, which, like the sculptural material, is directly connected to the hand, his ideas and implementations quickly grow ever larger and become more architectural.
Ever since his early days, Trenkwalder’s work has been greeted with resounding acclaim in France, where he has had his greatest successes and most important exhibitions.
Elmar Trenkwalder, born in 1959, lives and works in Innsbruck. He studied under Max Weiler and Arnulf Rainer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and achieved international recognition early on. Selected exhibitions: “Aperto 90,” Venice Biennale (1990); “Austria im Rosennetz,” MAK Vienna and “Wunderkammer Österreich,” Kunsthaus Zürich (1996), both curated by Harald Szeemann; Biennale Lyon (1997); Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz (2001 & 2003); Musée de Louvre Paris (2005); Maison Rouge Paris (2008); Centre Pompidou (2017); Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (2018); Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (2022).
Contact
info@ooelkg.at
Gmundner Keramik Manufaktur
Academy of Ceramics Gmunden
Keramikstraße 24 (third floor)
4810 Gmunden
Austria
Installation views by Michael Maritsch
