VIENNA.- In the latest edition of the Carlone Contemporary series, the Belvedere presents the imposing sculpture WVZ 183 by Austrian artist Elmar Trenkwalder.

General director and curator Stella Rollig: Elmar Trenkwalder’s art possesses a visual opulence that few can resist. His visual language feels both approachable and mysterious – what seems familiar at first slips beyond easy understanding on closer view. The monumental sculpture he has chosen for the Carlone Hall weaves a compelling dialogue between past and present.

For more than four decades, Elmar Trenkwalder (b. 1959, Weißenbach am Lech) has been creating monumental ceramic sculptures defined by their opulent formal language, meticulous details, and architectural presence. In his artistic practice, he draws inspiration from biomorphic shapes and a rich repertoire of archaic figures and ornaments that reference both Western art history and Asian symbolism. Each element is modeled, fired, and glazed by hand over an extensive period before being assembled into a cohesive whole.

The sculpture WVZ 183 makes for a striking contemporary presence within the frescoed Carlone Hall. As in Baroque art, illusion and abundance of detail are Trenkwalder’s artistic strategies to draw viewers into the spell of his work.

My starting point for the sculpture WVZ 183 was the geometric principle of an eight-pointed star. Akin to a wind rose or compass rose, this structural motif symbolizes navigation—both in physical space and on mental and symbolic levels. The oversized fingers marking the endpoints of the central axes embody a transgressive energy that channels the inherent logic of the form into a vertical structure. I translate these abstractions into a bodily dimension. They appear as both columns and corporeal elements that pierce the base, suggesting a transcendence of their own presence and pointing toward the existence of an expanded space. I believe this dynamic ideally intertwines with the imagery of the ceiling fresco and the illusionistic architecture of Carlone Hall. The illusion of a space expanding upward—toward the firmament, into the highest spheres of the universe—finds repeated sculptural articulation, establishing a resonance with the surrounding space, notes artist Elmar Trenkwalder.

Elmar Trenkwalder lives and works in Innsbruck. From 1978 to 1982, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Max Weiler and Arnulf Rainer. He gained international recognition early on in Cologne and France and has exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including: Aperto 90, Venice Biennale (1990); Austria im Rosennetz, MAK Vienna / Wunderkammer Österreich, Kunsthaus Zurich (1996); La Biennale de Lyon (1997); Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz (2001 & 2003); Musée du Louvre, Paris (2005); Maison Rouge, Paris (2008); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017); Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (2018); Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (2022), among others.

The Carlone Contemporary series presents contemporary works in the Carlone Hall of the Upper Belvedere every six months. By engaging with the Baroque pictorial program of the hall’s frescoes, artists create a dialogue between the mythological world of Apollo and Diana and the present day.