Hans Kupelwieser :
Kartoffeldruck

The ensembles of sculptures and objects by Hans Kupelwieser have never had anything to do with sculpture in the usual sense. Kupelwieser is more of a conceptual artist, and it is with this approach that he works on the unfolding of his objects, on stretching and extending them. The limitations of the materials present a challenge to Hans Kupelwieser. As an inventive transformer and an experienced juggler he astonishes with the metamorphoses of his hardware, transforming sheet metal into paper, or steel into chocolate. Kupelwieser blows up aluminium sheeting to make plush cushions, knots stolid male busts as relaxed craftsmanship and sinks multifunctional stages into mountain lakes. He explores the aesthetic potential of industrial waste, recycling the found pieces as sculpture and reducing them to surprisingly space-defining flashes of inspiration. Hans Kupelwieser has contrived a modest but highly refined setting for the lobby of the old age pensioners home and care facility in Scheibbs. Ambiguously and with his tongue in his cheek he calls the work Kartoffeldruck ('Potato Print/Pressure'). Four potato tubers (hollow aluminium casts) are stretched between columns and the wall. The load is directed vertically like in a vaulted ceiling to hold the potatoes in a spectacular hover. Hans Kupelwieser combines his system of references with wit and irony: the fruit of tillage are fused with the tectonics of a cathedral to produce a static marvel with a banal pile of potatoes.
(Brigitte Huck)