Franz Erhard Walther

Block Blau, 1993

In the late 1950s Walther broke away from traditional ideas of picture, sculpture and artistic material. His works are intended to open up spaces for the viewers where their own powers of imagination can develop and enter into a dialogue with materials that are familiar from daily handling. The 1990s Block works can be presented closed, in other words in the form in which they are stored and then the elements can be thought of projectively in various pictorial combinations on the wall. But the artist can also arrange Block Blau on the wall as an configuration to address the architectural context. “Block Blau, embedded in the Configurations work series, tries to leave defining the work to the viewer. As a block on the wall: image and solid at the same time. The exploded block articulates the wall. Thus defining the relationship of the parts to each other and at the same time to the proportions of the wall. The arrangement of the parts is determined by both. Given all this it should and will not be possible to make a distinction between ‘material’ and ‘work’. The exploded block wanders over the walls and speaks in the space. Relating to this, image and body at the same time. Transitions. Fragment. The work in head and space at the same time. Plastic drawing.” (F.E.W.)  Recently, his artistic work is receiving considerable international recognition. At last 2017, when Franz Erhard Walther was awarded with the Golden Lion for best artist of the exhibition “Viva Arte Viva” at the 57th Venice Biennale, Italy, where two of his textile objects are currently shown (May 13 – November 26, 2017).