Walter Pichler: Zwei Troge, Wasserrinnen

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Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman

Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna, 2013, German

Nonfiction, Architecture; Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History

From Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna. Catalogue for an exhibition of Walter Pichler’s work at the Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman exhibition in Vienna, April 4-May 10, 2013. With the presentation of Walter Pichler's work Zwei Tröge, Wasserrinnen (Two Troughs, Flumes) our gallery enters new territory. Walter Pichler, with his closely guarded objects and precise drawings, has been a frequent guest to our spaces. Only reluctantly he let his creations, his creatures, as it were, go out into the world from his “Akropolis” in St. Martin, Burgenland. Often it happened that he sent a figure, at times small, sometimes larger, along to protect the drawings and objects. His exhibitions he always prepared meticulously and was at all times present both when it came to the conceptual layout and the technical installation of his objects, so as to not to release them to the spheres of art unguardedly. Walter Pichler passed away in Vienna in the summer of last year. This now is going to be the first public presentation of his works that will have to do without his guidance. The perfection that always could be found in Pichler's works, and thanks to his instructions also in his exhibitions, we will sadly miss this time, as we will miss himself.

With the sculpture/architectural study Zwei Tröge, Wasserrinnen Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman Vienna presents a concept that appeared very early on in Walter Pichler's work, that took on its eventual form only at a later stage. It is a tricky balancing act that the artist sets out on with this project. Occupying an undefined state between architecture and visual arts, the flumes are perfect examples of his creative impetus. The buildings housing the troughs and flumes came about in St. Martin not only through a temporal context. The architectural purpose too stands in direct relation to the spatial conditions of Pichler's haven in southern Burgenland. In the hilly expanses of the region water is never far. Rain, brooks and rivers are omnipresent and have carved the gentle cultural landscape. Walter Pichler did not create spatial interventions here, he let the water do what it does naturally, namely flow. An architectural approach to this project would have required but few drawings. Yet this is where one of the main characteristics of Walter Pichler's work as an artist comes to the fore. Time has always been his prime material, time that he devoted to every single detail of his projects, in order to give them the attention they deserved. Working on an impulse, often regarded as a positive quality of the artistic process, never was Walter Pichler's mode of procedure. Every one of his objects was accorded the highest mental concentration and the best craftsmanship. This concentration, combined with his retreat from the hectic art world, makes Walter Pichler an exceptional artist and his work a successful and unique balancing act between art and architecture. Walter Pichler was born in Deutschnofen, South Tyrol, in 1936.

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