The Brooklyn Rail

Regarding the arts, the nation of Austria is known for punching above its weight. At Belvedere 21 the stage was set for a double act, when the curators chose an undocumented 1963 meeting that took place in Frederick Kiesler’s New York studio with Walter Pichler. Each section of Visionary Spaces highlights overlapping propositions from a selection of works by these two trailblazing iconoclasts. Addressing the gap between art, architecture, theory, and praxis, Visionary Spaces proves to be a commoving exhibition.

One hundred years ago, Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965) designed his L&T modular system as an affordable display solution for the International Exhibition of New Theater Techniques in Vienna. Kiesler was on a promising trajectory, having already enjoyed success with his stage set for the dystopian robot-play R.U.R. in Berlin. Following the premiere, Theo-Van Doesberg’s De Stijl “gang” (including Mies van der Rohe, El Lissitzky, and Hans Richter) abducted Kiesler, carrying him off on their shoulders to a nightclub with the hope of adding his name to their ranks.

In 1925 at the invitation of Josef Hoffman, Kiesler further developed his display system to float freely in space, for the International Industrial Arts Exhibition in Paris, boldly naming it City in Space. Kiesler declared it a model for a “decentralized federation dictated by the ground-formation".

Years later, Kiesler altered Louis Sullivan’s sacred quote, “Form does not follow function. Function follows vision. Vision follows reality.” Kiesler had set himself apart and freely expressed his lifelong adversity to Functionalism or “hygienic architecture” (although socially he enjoyed good relations with many of its proponents).

Kiesler’s most famous work, the Endless House (1947–61), demonstrated his theory of Correalism, in which he prioritised the physiological and psychological function of design using “Biotechnique,” a self-coined phrase describing the elasticity of nature’s building techniques.

From the exhibition’s documentation of Kiesler’s projects, rare examples of his unorthodox sculptures, heightened combinations of material and display, along with interdisciplinary drawings, paintings, photographs, murals, models, set designs, and furniture, the viewer senses the workings of a twenty-first century Renaissance person.

The artists of the Renaissance were also accomplished architects, notably Leonardo da Vinci, whose drawing of the Vitruvian Man’s outstretched limbs, demarcated both the perimeter of a circle and square, projecting mathematical proportions of the body to the cosmos. Originally postulated by the Roman engineer Vitruvius, one can connect da Vinci’s interpretation of the Cosmography of the Microcosm with the polymath investigations of Pichler and Kiesler.

When Kiesler died in 1965, no architect spoke at his funeral, and few attended.

Walter Pichler passed away in 2012, a date capping his magnum opus at St. Martin as an unnamed, unfinished (yet whole) synthesis of Pichler’s existential paradigm. Employing local materials and building techniques on a remote farm in the state of Burgenland, Pichler realised twelve of the eighteen named structures housing his sculptures.

To learn more about the story of the artist’s life, work, along with the mysterious sculptural hamlet of St. Martin, I had the privilege to tour the Belvedere 21 exhibition with Anna Tripamer, Walter Pichler’s daughter and director of the Walter Pichler Foundation.

Anna Tripamer: There is a motif of my father that worked with the shape of the skull and double skulls. This is a double skull from the late eighties—two skulls mating. He also extended the theme to architecture, by enlarging the suggested shape to the scale of a building.

As he showed in these drawings, one can enter this subterranean building via a single staircase descending to an entrance within the cavity.

Even when the scale increases to that of a building, it maintains its original sculpted or rendered shape—a recurring theme with Pichler.

Steven Pollock (Rail): That was also important in Renaissance thought—the notion of a proportionate microcosm of the macrocosm originating from the body.

Tripamer: Yes, there is a relationship. Here is another drawing, Skullcap from 1979, which also looks like an insect or a turtle, a living thing designed by organic architecture. That organic building process was parallel to Kiesler’s Correalism.

Rail: The catalogue and exhibition have been divided into sections or chapters, progressing from “Archiplastic”, “Organic,” and “Spiritual” to “Sensory,” “Performative,” and “Functional.”

Tripamer: Yes, there is the idea of chapters. Through all the years of the work, this mutable thought process was deployed. Also in the “Prototypes,” the helmet for Small Room (Prototype 4) (1967) has the implied shape of two skullcaps.

Rail: The “Prototypes” were a radical shift. They were seen as a futuristic or utopian embracing of technology, not exactly a celebration of humanity. I also see a critique of encroaching technology.

Tripamer: During the late 1960s the inspiration was outside the art world, like racing cars and rocketry. The moon landing brought attention to modern industrial materials like aluminium, and plastic. This was also the time when he was inspired by living in New York where modernity contoured the skyline.

There was an air of electricity during the sixties, apparent even by how he staged his interviews. In 1967, he spoke to journalists from the inside of a huge transparent pneumatic room declaring sculpture disposable. That approach changed over time.

Rail: Can we look at that one?

Tripamer: The idea of this was very much together with Hans Hollein.

Rail: … and the writings of Oswald Wiener.

Tripamer: Absolutely, The Bio-Adapter.

Rail: Oswald Wiener and Pichler made so many accurate predictions about our era. The extended body of Pichler is prescient of A1, VR, and fusion to our phones, mankind’s preferred portal to the world and fellow human beings.

Tripamer: Here’s a 1967 photograph of a TV Helmet (Portable Living Room). It has a small TV on top allowing the user to move through space; their vision is from the screen exclusively. They hear via a transmitter connected by a radio harness. This is our time, isn’t it?

He featured it with music even before the Walkman existed.

Rail: The Metaverse, virtual reality, cybersex, AI companions, crypto-currency, digital art, social media, etc., etc. were accurately predicted. The next generation has almost no tactile knowledge of the world, they learned everything by algorithm, if that is learning.

These works were a tipping point between the “Archiplastics” & “Visionary” pieces. In his essays on the Bio-Adapter, Oswald Wiener states external phenomena are inadequate and in need of improvement. Was that literal for Pichler? Dystopian or utopian?

Tripamer: Sometimes it was fun. Yeah, there is a lot of that. Irony. Their friendship was intense back in the day, and they remained friends till the end. Not work-wise, but they had great mutual respect, even if they were no longer collaborating. During that time, they inspired each other by posing questions about the nature of reality.

Rail: In an interview published in 2014, Oswald Wiener said, “Walter Pichler saw himself as a utopian architect … who declared everything to be architecture, as I had declared everything to be language. He built a helmet with a small television screen that shields people from the world around them. That was enough to dedicate the bioadaptor to him.”

Tripamer: It is not so obvious (elements of play), especially in the later works, but the irony remained.

This group of prototypes was composed of technical adaptations for the body. It allowed one to hide from the outer world, turning inward which over time has greater relevance.

Rail: It's Existential.

Tripamer: Yes, Existential is the word.

Rail: Did you ever see this exhibited?

Tripamer: The original was in the studio archive. It was unrecognisable, deflated in a box that he wasn’t interested in anymore. He was busy with new work in the countryside, discovering other materials, and so on. Sabine Breitwieser, then-director of the Generali Foundation, convinced him to exhibit this. They restored everything perfectly for an exhibition in 1998.

Rail: Have you ever seen anyone inside?

Tripamer: Yes, I've been inside to inflate it! There is a zipper and once you arrange everything you have to jump out quickly before the air escapes.

Rail: I am fascinated by the 1971 photograph of Pichler in bed with the sculpture, Old Figure beside him. It reminds me of legendary musicians who slept with their instruments.

Tripamer: The image is from his Vienna studio in the 1st district which is now the office of the Estate. When he slept there, he laid the sculpture horizontally at night, while in the morning he put it on its stand in an upright position. Let’s call it performative, but a private performance.

This ties in with his awareness of the body and the mutability of perception. Why shouldn’t an artwork assume the same position as its creator? This heightened sense of subjectivity points to the fact that we live in a state of flux; inspiring work to float, or sensory alterations to the body or subterranean cities.

This is another portable piece from 1970, Portable Shrine, Procession. My father is carrying the sculpture with a friend (Werner Stupka) on a little tour through the city center.

Rail: It’s included in a section labelled “Spiritual.” Are these works spiritual?

Tripamer: It’s a shrine but not a specific shrine. The German word for shrine does not imply something as heavy as it does in English. It could be closer to a totem, as it’s not sacred necessarily. It is a return to the people in a way, isn’t it—the vernacular?

Rail: What about Catholicism? In one of the texts from the catalogue, the author suggests that work like this falls within the scope of Otto Mauer’s promotion of Sacred Art through the program of Galerie St. Stephan, where your father showed. I differ.

Tripamer: Exactly, some visitors to St. Martin have interpreted it as a spiritual project when entering the small tower and observing how the light is directed. I understand why they have come to that conclusion, but it is misconstrued. If a space is not a workspace, a place to eat or sleep, or with any recognizable function, we assume it is a sacred space. But couldn’t St. Martin simply have the perfect structures to host his sculptures?

He grew up in a deeply religious environment with my grandparents. He came from the German-speaking part of Tyrol, which changed hands from Italy to Austria. This was an exceedingly small village which during the Nazi period was caught in a pact between Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler wanted to take the German-speaking minority out of Italy to populate remote sections of Ukraine.

Of course, the parents of my father did not want to leave, and once they moved, they were placed in a refugee camp for over a year, under threat of being sent to Ukraine.

They stayed in North Tyrol, a place that made my grandmother incredibly unhappy. She was a quite simple woman, very Catholic with no higher education, but at the same time highly intelligent. They were wonderful people, and in this case their piety contributed to that.

They were kind to each other and to other members of this small community. They shared what they had and watched out for each other. My father was not religious, but this was something he deeply respected. He never had anything to do with the church or the Catholic institutions.

So that is his background. Interpretation depends very much on who does the seeing and sometimes it annoys me because it's obvious to me but there has been confusion, especially when he used the shape of a cross. Those sculptures are not Christian.

Rail: Did he have a philosophy?

Tripamer: Yes, one that was always evolving. He had a strong philosophical basis that emanated from his being, re-defining his position in the world which he explored through his work.

He was always questioning why he was doing something, and even though had doubts, he still needed to do it. It was not a happy working situation and, as you have heard, that gave my father a reputation for having an intense position.

Rail: Austrian artists have a reputation of extremes, whether it is the Actionists or historical figures like Schiele, Gerstl, or Kokoschka. Around Pichler there is the idea he rejected the art world and retreated to the country. Was St. Martin finished?

Tripamer: It never could have been finished. There were plans for more buildings as well as different versions. We have decided that the date of my father's death is when it ends.

Rail: Did you ever hear him speak about Brancusi or Giacometti?

Tripamer: When he was young, they were a clear influence; not just by the formal characteristics but by their stance as artists. He visited Brancusi at his studio at the Impasse Ronsin in Paris.

Brancusi's studio was very much a controlled environment, not just for production. He came from this narrow valley in Italy, and it was mind-blowing to see people living and working in that way; for him, it opened an entire universe. There was also literature, of course.

Rail: Which authors?

Tripamer: Many! It was always changing, but the Russians, Dostoevsky. And the Bible, the translation of Martin Luther, but not as a religious text but rather a cultural record. It lay next to his drawing table. Let’s look at this: Two crucibles with Inflows (Model of a Good Relationship Between a Man and a Woman) (1971).

Rail: Aren’t those channels in the brass meant to have water in them?

Tripamer: It was meant to be outside; instead of the pile of sand surrounding the brass, it could be dug into the earth, and when it rains the water fills the channels connecting the two concave sections like the skulls. In St. Martin, there is a building with water flowing right through the middle connecting it to the outside, which is wonderful.

He grew up in a rugged mountainous terrain; there was always water running through the rocks like the vessels in the sculpture, where it collects as one. Brancusi wanted to put his bird sculptures in the middle of a lake, which one would have swum to see them. This story was an inspiration, especially for St. Martin.

Rail: Maybe people have been looking for religion in his work when they should be digging the poetry. What was the most unexpected thing that has come out of this joint exhibition?

Tripamer: When it finally came together, I saw enlarged photos of the model of Kiesler’s Endless House, with its miniature chairs and fern leaf as a tree, suggesting a full-scale house. My father would not have enlarged a photo like that, but in his work, one can follow the genesis of an idea to a drawing, then as a sculpture or a model suggesting variable dimensions to become a building or even a city. That was a similar way to work, or even to play.

Rail: What about the idea that Pichler turned his back on the art world after he moved to St. Martin, even declining an invitation to return to Documenta and gallery shows?

Tripamer: He spent a lot of time in the middle of nowhere, but St. Martin had the biggest workspace you could imagine. It may have looked like a break from the art world, and that created this myth that he would not take part anymore; but it wasn’t true. He was always working on books and exhibitions; he just took his time. He also turned down a professorship for the same reason, as he would have missed this time from his work.

END OF INTERVIEW

In his never-published book project Magic Architecture, Frederick Kiesler traced a history of habitat, both human and animal as "magic architecture [as] an architecture for everyone."

After he met with Kiesler, Pichler’s desire to base himself in New York was thwarted by issues with his visa. Instead, he travelled to Mexico, an experience that stimulated a change in his work that he wrote about in his article "The Lesson of Pre-Colombian Architecture,” published in 1964,

With a few exceptions [current architecture] is non-functional. It offers man nothing to occupy him; it influences in no manner his great yearning and slight talent for sociability. In a false manner it seeks to take this yearning into account. Our cities are false, and our community centres are false, because no-one can be introduced to communal life merely by the image of community. And this is what we reproach architectural functionalism with: it no longer functions. What I call for is an architecture which fascinates.

Moving away from the streamlined fabrications of the prototypes, Pichler reached a turning point with his sculpture, crafting the buildings and sculptures they housed from local organic materials, as well as polished bronze, into other-worldly archaic forms.

Living in a technocracy our era will be remembered for both its poverty of spirit and the creation of the most passive, disconnected generation in human history—de-evolving by AI, and hosting data.

Alternatively, the straightforward design titles for Pichler’s St. Martin, such as House for My Daughter or House for the Couples, expose a rare generosity of spirit akin to Brancusi’s Gate of the Kiss, part of the triptych of the Monumental Ensemble, in Târgu Jiu, Romania.

Equally one imagines being swept away by the poetry of Kiesler’s Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, a site that can be described as one of the axis mundi (axis of the world).

Or returning to St. Martin wandering through Walter Pichler’s structures set in an unspoiled landscape, to house sculptures that would stimulate a good conversation between a man and a woman.