Artists

Elmar Trenkwalder

Press release

The expansive sculptures of Austrian artist Elmar Trenkwalder (b. 1959 in Weißenbach am Lech) are truly a feast for the eyes. For his large-scale works, he draws upon a rich repertoire of archaic figures, lavish ornament, and biomorphic forms to create an inexhaustible wealth of detail. As part of the CARLONE CONTEMPORARY series, Trenkwalder presents his work WVZ 183 in the Baroque Carlone Hall of the Upper Belvedere, where opulence and thematic complexity link the contemporary sculpture to the Baroque pictorial program of the space. 

Trenkwalder’s monumental, often architecturally inspired sculptures originate in the medium of drawing. The artist hand-shapes countless individual pieces over an extended period, firing and glazing them before assembling them into a cohesive work. Echoing Baroque art, Trenkwalder employs sensory illusion and a wealth of information as artistic strategies, to draw viewers under the spell of his works. 

Curated by Stella Rollig. 
Assistant Curator: Johanna Hofer