01.07. – 21.08. 2022
The sculptor Josef Pillhofer would have been 100 years old this year. The Kunsthaus Muerz in Mürzzuschlag is dedicating a large retrospective to him.
Building bridges from the past to the present is the basic idea of the “Bridges” exhibition series conceived by curator Günter Holler-Schuster, which this year is dedicated to a retrospective of the work of the sculptor Josef Pillhofer.
In collaboration with Pillhofer’s daughter Susanna Tabaka-Pillhofer, Holler-Schuster has arranged an exhibition of his complex work in the Kunsthaus Muerz.
Pillhofer’s sculptural work could also be described as “spatial art”. Because his sculptural works are always related to the space that surrounds them.
Pillhofer, who was head of the Institute for Artistic Design at Graz University of Technology in the 1970s, always engaged his architecture students with questions about the relationship between space and object.
Pillhofer was particularly concerned with proportions in his work. Inspired, among other things, by the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, such as his investigations into the “Vitruvian Man”, Pillhofer re-explored the proportions of things and figures in many of his works.
Starting with the human body, he investigated how proportions can also be applied to architecture.
With his sculptural work, the Wotruba scholar, who was also a member of the Vienna Secession, influenced not only object art itself but also the architecture of many younger architects.
The design of the portal wall in the Liesing parish church by the architect Robert Kramreiter could be cited as an example of his approach, which combines the strict geometric form of a rectangle in the proportions of the golden section with the proportions of the human body.
In his work, Pillhofer has always placed the “human dimension” at the center of his art. A bridge from the past, over which we could also well and wisely step into the future.
BRÜCKEN 22 – Josef Pillhofer
01.07. – 21.08. 2022
Kunsthaus Mürz, Mürzzuschlag
www.kunsthausmuerz.at
