Page 22 - Studio International - December 1965

peculiar and urgent problem is to make clear whether Nature', quite exact and academic reproductions, com­
Nausica Pastra
Figure 1962 and how it is possible in the contemporary situation to plete the creation of a figure based on the abstract.
realize the material object as plastic essence. This urge The clearly arranged 'stake' forms, carried out with com­
2
Rudolf Wach to concretization, towards a quintessence of the figure, plete tectonic logic, have significance as figures only
Seated Figure 1963 inspired the purist creation which furnished the in the fact of their erectness.
Bronze
Austrian contribution to the 1962 Biennale. The groups Roland Goschl stands midway between figure and
displayed at the same time showed the further quality of symbol. From a relatively long stay in London as a
extreme versatility. While the first figure combinations student, he brought back a number of noteworthy
of this kind combined individual figures to mural-like designs, meticulously executed drawings, in their in­
complexes and abundant overlapping of the compact vention ranging in a quite unusual way into the domain
arrangement, more recently the artist has been very of the phantasmagorical. The sculptures produced
much preoccupied with the 'columnity' of the figure. at the same time set flat convex elements on a vertical
The vertical overhead piecing together is equivalent to stem. Subtle modulations determine the alternation of
the towering arrangement of Brancusi's 'endless' the form sequence. The design of the Speaker­
columns. The element used for these new connections, figuratively conceived-gradually approaches ideal
the single figure disposed with a certain obliquity, and absolute forms, which are later refigured as busts
enables a number of unusual liaisons: the flat return­ and 'portraits'. Decoration with bright colours strength­
arch or the high-wound spiral. ens the organization of these structures. In sharp
Josef Pillhofer engaged for a time in the late phase of contrasts and shifts of emphasis, red, blue and yellow
synthetic cubism with Zadkine in Paris; later, he produce a signal-like urgency, a deliberate 'spelling out'
adopted the block-like style of Wotruba and derived which gives a drastic effect to the construction. While
inspiration from the reifying sculpture of a Gilioli. Goschl in this-as already previously in the slender
While his collages still depend on the literally under­ columns of his welded iron sculptures-with the strange
stood formality of cubism, in his sculptural work a combination of the figurative and his formal technique
certain parallelism prevails: models 'according to of alienation, still retains a type figure (with this mixture
2 approaching the work of Hoflehner), the Meditations­
p/astik of Kark Prantl remains completely in the realm of
the symbolic. Monument and sign are plastic principles:
in the little studio piece and in the monumental design
it is a question of obvious contrasts. These groupings
are in the nature of the surface treatment, obtained by
clefts, furrows and perforations. Sharp penetration and
flat depression, even and undulating pattern clash
significantly. The fact that Prantl prefers to treat religious
subjects underlines the symbolizing, 'token' character of
his work. This emphatic self-relation-to-something
constitutes its strangeness. And the Stein zur Ehre Gottes
(Stone to the Glory of God), set at the edge of the
Negev, is a good example of the way Prantl relates the
surrounding landscape to his design.
In a similar way Wander Bertoni and Alois Heidel have
found their ground in the formal and the symbolic.
Wander Bertoni, an Italian by birth, who since the War
has been living in Vienna, has not lost the Mediter­
ranean joy in form. A wealth of simple and complicated,
primitive and highly elegant, totem-like and figuratively­
intended, harmonious and eloquent possibilities meet
together in his work. In crystalline folds Heidi builds
columns. Franz Anton Coufal, again, with his unrelated
pieces has progressed from the compact form elements
of the former Wotruba student to airy, spectacular
space-hungry rod systems.
Finally, mention should be made of some 'impulses·
which taken together are not unimportant, but hardly
fit in the definition of a Vienna School of Plastic Art.
Gottfried Goebel, who has almost become a Parisian,
originally a painter, has more and more devoted himself
to sculpture. Latterly, remarkably formed, unequivocally
figurative models are to be seen from his hand. Among
the sculptors living in the Austrian provinces, the
Tyrolean Oswald Oberhuber produced at the beginning
of the fifties a multitude of exuberant forms which mark
him out as one of the pioneers of informe/ plastic art.
The Styrean Gerhard Mosswitzer has established him­
self with curious iron sculptures derived from the
technique of assembly. From Graz, Fritz Hartlauer has
provoked discussion with his 'primeval cell systems',
packed monstrance-like or propagated in relief. Alfons
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