Artists

Gottfried Bechtold

Press release

Gottfried Bechtold (*1947) is considered one of the defining figures of Austrian contemporary art. Since the late 1960s, he has developed a rigorously conceptual, cross-media practice encompassing sculpture, photography, drawing, text, and performative interventions in public space. His work is characterized by a precise analysis of social symbols and a sustained inquiry into perception, attribution of value, and the very conditions of artistic production.

Bechtold gained international recognition in particular for his engagement with the automobile as a cultural, economic, and ideological object. Since the 1970s, he has explored the car as a projection surface for beliefs in progress, promises of mobility, notions of status, and ideas of individual freedom.

The Concrete Porsche is among Bechtold’s most iconic works. The sculpture is an exact replica of a Porsche 911, cast in solid concrete. An object that normally stands for speed, elegance, and technical perfection is rendered literally heavy, immobile, and monumental. Concrete—symbolic of permanence, the construction industry, and urban infrastructure—stands in radical contrast to the very idea of a sports car. By stripping the object of its function, Bechtold transforms it into a sculpture that negates mobility while simultaneously exposing and questioning its cultural glorification.

At the end of April 2026, a Concrete Porschefrom the series Elf Elf (2006) will pull into the so-called “Director’s Parking Space” in the Hanuschhof courtyard. Weighing several tons, the sculpture subverts the promises of speed, freedom, and individual accessibility commonly associated with the automobile. Within the specific context of the courtyard, the work also unfolds a subtly ironic commentary on questions of ownership, privilege, and the hierarchical organization of space—particularly with regard to parking spaces as markers of power and status.

Bechtold’s interventions in public space are always defined by their precision of placement. At first glance, the Concrete Porsche appears familiar, yet its physical presence and materiality create a moment of dissonance. This very ambivalence—between recognizability and estrangement—is central to Bechtold’s artistic strategy. His works invite viewers to reread everyday symbols and to question their social meanings.

Complementing the installation, the auditorium will present photographs, films, and serial works that contextualize the Concrete Porsche and illuminate Bechtold’s long-standing engagement with the motif of the automobile, as well as with issues of reproduction, seriality, and documentation. These works make clear that the Concrete Porsche is not to be understood as a singular object, but as part of an artistic field of inquiry developed over decades.

A catalogue will be published to accompany the exhibition.
Curated by Verena Kaspar-Eisert and Rolf H. Johannsen.