Franz Xaver Ölzant
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Große Compagnie
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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.
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Franz Xaver Ölzant works close to nature whose organicism and forms always provide him inspiration and models. In the Waldviertel "Findlingen" (Foundlings) he finds a sort of nature which he then transforms, giving the stone structure and new ornaments. Given his consideration that he could only adequately persue his ideas in an isolated setting he soon withdrew to the Waldviertel region where he constantly studies and elaborates a model of nature to obtain an artistic structure.
His "Grande Compagnie" (purchased by the cultural office) in the top foyer of the parliament building are well placed in the light-flooded hall. The ten stones introduce an intrinsic concentration in the space and, by extension, a basic artistic structure for all of his later interventions. One of the most important creatice intentions the artist referred to are, in addition to the phenomenon of weightlessness, the rhythms so essential to him. "I saw this in the megalitic figures which create this really powerful myth with the most elementary forms. This also prompted me to break with individualistic thinking (so widespread here in Europe) which excluses such rhythmizing. This is also certainly what accounts for the strange (and alienating) aspect of my works, since I have consciously activated elements from other realms and contexts..." (Franz Xaver Ölzant).
The project is currently not set up on site.
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