Franz Erhard Walther

49 Nesselplatten, 1963

Franz Erhard Walther’s works are intended to open up spaces to individual imagination, to a dialogical handling of materials and forms as well as to participatory action concepts. He integrates processual structures and temporary production and treatment forms like folding, separating, dividing, pasting, packing up, cutting or laying out. Around 1962/63 he developed his series of works for unfolding and opening out through this. One of the main works from the early period is 49 Nesselplatten, created by cutting up a hardboard sheet. The work can exist in two different states: piled up, as a storage device and work form at the same time, and in the various ways in which it can be laid out on the floor, defined individually by the viewer. The act of laying out the work is a component of it.