Bruno Gironcoli
:
Figur flach mit drei Trauben
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The two-stage competition provided the background to the artistic intervention in St. Pölten, for which seven artworks by Austrian artists were recommended for realisation. These projects are by Josef Danner, Bruno Gironcoli, Richard Hoeck, Hans Kupelwieser, Christoph Steffner, Thomas Stimm and Heimo Zobernig. Five commissions for interiors were awarded directly, to Gunter Damisch, Franz Graf, Brigitte Kowanz, Eva Schlegel and Walter Vopava. The winning project in a separate competition for the design of the chapel (1995) is by Arnulf Rainer. Additional existing artworks by Franz Xaver Ölzant, Oskar Putz and Ruth Schnell are also to be found in the Regierungsviertel. Works by Dara Birnbaum and Michelangelo Pistoletto, also selected by the first jury, are not realized.
Bruno Gironcoli's large-scale sculptures are like models in terms of vitality and growth on a large scale, like machines that do not perform any tasks but rather bring forth alternative visions of different contexts and processes. The artist gave his last big exhibition held at the Vienna Museum of Applied Arts the title "The Unbegotten" - a good description of his private mythology but also an allusion to the hidden, the Other of which he says: "My works are as aggressive as the parent-child situation also can be in reality..." (Interview with Bruno Gironcoli, in: Der Standard, 20. 5. 1997). The jury recommended that the piece "Figur flach mit drei Trauben" (Figure flat with three grapes) be purchased. The work was produced between 1986 and 2000 and alludes to the motiv of fertility in the title with ears of corn, grapes, leaves, spoons, figures, etc. that can be associated with different more or less abstract forms. Such elements are typical for Gironcoli's work and, as Armin Zweite has written, "...sacral and vegetable, past and present, poor and valuable, clear and intricate flow together or become detached from each other..." (catalogue of the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, 1990). In this connection Gironcoli speaks of "hackneyed flourishes": "If it is true that the kitsch formalizes what a collective shares in terms of happiness then the flourishes strained by me, this schlieren, a being that imitates that which was claimed by the collective whole so as to get a touch of happiness."
(Bruno Gironcoli)
Since 2023, the figure has been on display in the outdoor space on the roundabout at the Landesgalerie Niederösterreich.
Images (7)
