Walter Pichler: Generali Foundation

Walter Pichler in conversation with Christian Reder

In oriental cities in the middle of the densest bazar life there are small prayer rooms, which are actually rooms to rest, in which you can retreat; the big mosque can be used in the same way and these "introverted" houses complete the typology of enclaves which don't have any correspondence in our culture. For museums a similar demand has been made time and again and the isolated farm in St. Martin is an enclave for Walter Pichler, complete with atelier rooms and buildings constructed just for his sculptures. Private space or museum space as a defense againt the public?

I've arranged it this way because it is very difficult today for a scukptor to find room for his work. For which room is he actually working? I can't display my sculptures in any public squares, I don't work for a customer. Therefore, I use my own grounds to turn my ideas into reality, A gallery is not a good environment for my sculptures, my only option for an exhibition is a museum. The museum has always been important to me anyway, a part of my work, because of my great interest in old and especially anoymous art. It always had much more meaning to me as an educational institution than an academy or a school.

Despite the books that have improved their print quality with time?

Yes, because reproduction is relatively unsuitable for sculptures. They have to be looked at suddenly, in the same way as required for architecture. You have to be able to go inside and walk around, you have to be able to move, get a feel for the room, feel the material. It may be acceptable for the reproduction of a drawing or a painting, but you have to look at sculpture.
Naturalls I always visit museums in my travels, they are a reference point in every city, a kind of home - and this is true for two reasons. First of all, your relatives are there, spanning many centuries, including the vain or arrogant relations. Secondly, I need the museum as a building, in which I can temporarily move with my work when I leave St. Martin - which I wouldn't call a museum. I have to be able to set myself up there, to be able to rearrange, to create new spatial situations for my work.

Can model demands on an artist's method of working be derived from the way an artist's work can be displayed in a museum with the greatest possible presence nowadays?

The point of departure is the atelier, the concrete, very intimate work environment. In my case it is definitely enlarged because I no longer work in some of the houses However, it is the general context with the space for production, with the creative area, where some finished objects, some half-finished stand about as a sign of processes,
not yet releleased from this space. lf I then take such works into another house, in amuseum, I have to forget these self-evident truths and have to work out a completely new concept. I must really take my sculptures out of my - and their - environment. Drawings are independent in comparison to them; they find their way, hang somewhere framed, maybe in some relationship to one another, but that is not so important.
On the other hand, a completely new spatial situation has to be created for sculpture. This has to be done in three steps: for the quality of the work itself, for the pedestal and for the architectonic solution. Many good sculptors are helpless and lack talent in the last two areas. We have to fight this. It is rather decisive in which material situation, in which environment, in which lighting a sculpture can define itself. As an artist I have the duty to create the most optimal condition for sculpture.
That's why I always negotiate my demands exactly in respect to these factors whena museum exhibition is being prepared. In the case of the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, where I will be exhibited in 1990, my needs will ideally be met because this house is in the midst of a complete restructuring and naturally this openness very much so complies with my considerations. My last exhibition in the Staedel in Frakfurt was an example where some radical changes made it possible to change rooms decisiveIy, to eIiminate useless things and, through the opening of previously boarded up windows, to create new lighting conditions and open up a context with the city. In co-operation with Peter Noever we have even gone much farther. Since everything in the house is in motion, I can tie myself into this motion and we can make something which is in the best sense of the word museological. I'II do my thing there and at the same time leave the museum something enduring; a new opening to the garden, for example. Despite he static constructions of an old house, it has to create a flexibility at the same time - especially a spatial one -, so that almost anything is possible inside. For example, we must be able to change the lighting, the room proportions, the height, the floors. With the conventional partitions that only resemble walls, all this isn't possible. These are conceptions from the 1950s that yearn to be modern. Even the Centre Pompidou doesn't have anything better. Any old museum with walls into which you can drive nails is superior to that.
Superior is even the modernest of museums, or else any opera or any partially equipped theater if you take their variability as regards stage machinery, renovations, lighting and criteria like acoostics, staff efforts even up to security measures as a standard.
That says a lot about the assessment of fine art. In a museum, art is, how should I say, the only main character, while otherwise the whole thing is mainly about interpretation and the secondary display of productions. We, on the other hand, have to struggle with the most ridiculous and most primitive devices everywhere, even in the brand new buildings. Principally, a hall is necessary in which you can simply present everything with every possible technology. Every possible kind of lighting must be available from natural day light to dislocated systems. It must be possible to put in walls, the climate must be correct, one must be able to paint or change the floors.

Translation: Carin Föhn