Hans Kupelwieser
2002-2021

Hellbrunn SculpturePark, 2021, Salzburg, Austria

"Unusual objects and sculptures, characterized by the use of unconventional techniques and materials. Here you can see Hans Kupelwieser's clear, convincing artistic attitude. They shake up certainties. Is it not the artist who captures, if at all, the depths and heights of our condition, the state of our society?" (Peter Noever)

After the welcome of the invited opening guests by Michael Karrer, the initiator and organizer of the SculpturePark in Hellbrunn, salzburg Peter Noever addressed a short speech to Hans Kupelwieser, who was chosen to present a remarkable oeuvre of his sculptures in this year's contemporary art show.

Here is an excerpt from Peter Noever's speech:

Everything has been said.
Everything has been brought to the point.
And beyond that, the works of art lay demonstratively before us - and speak for themselves.
They do.
Even when art connoisseurs think they know more, have to say more about it.
However, it was not too long ago, I remember, that Hans Kupelwieser had the postulate "Peace to the huts! War on the palaces!" made people listen up. This served as a battle cry for the French revolutionary army as early as 1792.
Well, the event took place in the palace of a warlord. By the way, this is also one of the outstanding architectural examples of the High Baroque. It was the palace of one of the most important warlords, generals and protagonists of Austria at that time: Prince Eugene of Savoy.
Also known as the "Winter Palace", located directly in the center of Vienna.
At the time of the aforementioned event, the magnificent Baroque building was under the control of the Belvedere, i.e. Agnes Husslein. And is now the seat of the Minister of Finance. Perhaps also a vague indication of how the Republic deals with art.
In the sense of "a contemporary act is needed!" I invited 15 idiosyncratic, if I may say so, artists to intervene, to set an intervention, in each case in a representative room of the Prince Eugene Winter Palace in the context of my exhibition "Vienna for Art's Sake!".

Vito Acconci arrived, it was two years before his death, from N.Y. - all artists developed completely new works for these magnificent and overloaded baroque rooms.
Zaha Hadid's "trompe l'oeil," a seamless composition of time and flowing space became a permanent, integrating part of the building.
And Hans Kupelwieser erected the sculpture "Hütteldorf im Himmelpfort," a house made of spruce wood, a kind of refuge into which one could take refuge from the golden glow of Fischer von Erlach's building.
An unmistakable artistic position that makes visible the unbroken power of an artistic act. Also an indispensable confrontation with the built tradition and important contemporary trends.

Already on the occasion of his major MAK personal exhibition "Transformation" in 1994, he showed next to the "dam wall", consisting of 168 oversized no-name heads made of cast aluminum - a kind of memorial - his first pneumatic sculpture "metal cushion".

And the presentation today: unusual objects and sculptures, characterized by the use of unconventional techniques and materials. Here one recognizes Hans Kupelwieser's clear, convincing artistic attitude. For reasons of cultural hygiene alone, such events of contemporary art are indispensable - especially in a city as rich in tradition as this one.
They shake up certainties.
Is it not the artist who, if at all, grasps the depths and heights of our condition, the condition of our society?

Hans Kupelwieser, with him and his work I have felt connected for decades. He shows us here not images of sharply chiseled alpine rock formations, but flying cloud fields, not pleasing imbalances, fearlessness combined with wit and fresh, of course irreplaceable and probably untranslatable works.
Works, sculptures - away from a romantic and uncivilized longing for nature.
Far from the rampant dilettantism, which is so hyped today in the production of art, in many cases sets the tone, he creates with his own raw intelligence of taste, the complex examination of the phenomenon of a time, our time. (Peter Noever, July 1, 2021, Hellbrunn Salzburg)

When Kupelwieser then took the floor to emphasize the special collaboration, Noever said, surprised and delighted: "That's a thrust reversal now !"