Lucky visitors to the press days at the 57th International Art Exhibition "Viva Arte Viva" in Venice, curated by Christine Macel and chaired by Paolo Baratta, may have stumbled upon the German artist Franz Erhard Walther quietly "activating" his installations at the Arsenale.
Franz Erhard Walther displayed in this space of the Venice Biennale three works from the Wallformation series created between 1983 and 1986, and a selection of Schreitsockel (Walking pedestals) from 1975.
His works are part of the section dubbed "Pavilion of the Common", featuring works of artists exploring the notion of the common world and the possibility of building a community to counter individualism.
Walther's vibrantly coloured textile pieces are suspended between drawing, sculpture and painting, but they are also examples of complex textile art, indeed the pieces only look minimalist, but they aren't at all simple, since they can be folded, reshaped and inhabited by a person.
Born in Fulda, Germany, in 1939, Walther (who, from 1957 to 1964 studied at the Werkkunstschule in Offenbach, the Städelschule in Frankfurt and the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, where he had studio classes with Joseph Beuys, another artist with strong links with fabrics) investigates through his pieces the condition of the artistic object but also the role of the viewer as receiver and participant.
His works often consist in canvas objects that can be folded, opened and inhabited and that at times spark comparisons with the works of other artists such as Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape.
Stating that Franz Erhard Walther was "performing" at the Arsenale would maybe be incorrect as the artist was slowly moving along one of his pedestals, with his back to his ochre yellow wall formation, showing how his installations can take new configurations once they are inhabited by a person, he wasn't therefore performing for a specific audience.
The interesting thing about his pieces is that, when viewers enter his works and become part of them, they aren't able to see them anymore; at the same time, when they activate them, they discover new ways to use the artworks, deciding the time sequence and the actions to take there, and ending up contributing to the pieces. Once the person activating the pieces and giving them shape leaves them, the artworks look almost dead or incomplete.
By activating his pieces Walther was also prompting visitors to find answer to the main question posed by this section of the Arsenale - how do you building something in common in a world that has failed to realise all its projects of quality and fraternity? By recreating conditions for new possibilities, the Biennale curator suggests, and that's exactly what these textiles pieces do, they are indeed sculptures, paintings or wearable textile pockets that offer viewers new possibilities.
Fashion designers should pay attention to Franz Erhard Walther's works: for this artist sewing is indeed an innovative means of expression, and his passion for these fabric-based structures and constructions has won him a major award in Venice.
The Jury of the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia - comprising Manuel J. Borja-Villel (President of the Jury, Spain), Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Italy), Amy Cheng (Taiwan), Ntone Edjabe (Cameroon) and Mark Godfrey (Great Britain) - awarded him today the Golden Lion for the Best Artist of the 57th International Art Exhibition with the following motivation "for his work, which brings together forms, colour, fabrics, sculpture, performance and continues to activate the viewer in engaging ways; for the radical and complex nature of his oeuvre that has an impact on our time and suggests a way of living in transit."
Franz Erhard Walther's works will be periodically activated during the six months of the Biennale.
Note for book lovers: for this year's project "Unpacking My Library", inspired by Walter Benjamin's 1931 essay, Franz Erhard Walther recommended as reading materials Martin Heidegger's "Holzwege" (Off the Beaten Track), Kurt Pinthus' "Menschheitsdämmerung: Ein Dokument des Expressionismus" (Dawn of Humanity: A document of Exressionism) and Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress".
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