Alfred Haberpointner
Ferdinandstraße
09 September 2022 - 29 October 2022

Info

Galerie Scheffel is pleased to present a new exhibition featuring the work of the internationally esteemed Austrian sculptor Alfred Haberpointner. The main focus will be on the most recent works in his long-standing work series: a variety of abstract head sculptures as well as diverse examples of his characteristic  “Gewichtungen” (weightings), “Haken” (hooks) and wall objects.

In his predominantly wood or metal scuptures, Alfred Haberpointner explores the inter-relationship of body and space. His works are always the result of systematic reflection and long work processes. In successive work series, he creates countless variations from simple basic forms, exploring themes such as proportion, weight, material and surface. In this, the rudimentary form of the human head takes on a central role.

“The head is a possible form for vicariously addressing the thematic of Man. […] My form is abstract, it is not a portait referring to a person, but is a symbolic form”, explains Haberpointner. For his heads, he cuts horizontal or vertical openings into prepared wood forms, saws serial or criss-cross lines into them, chops filigree line patterns onto their skin with an axe, stains or chars their surfaces. He reduces the material of the initial forms until “their surface is worked in such detail that it fans out, intermeshing with the space”. His diaphanous head forms made of welded-together steel cramps, or his heads made from steel discs assembled into a transparent framework of lines also thematize this interleaving with space.

Haberpointner’s unmistakeable works don’t make any contentual points, they don’t tell stories. They open fields of association, yet always remain open to interpretation. This is also true of the richly-varied bronzes or wood works in his “Weighting” series: an irregular spherical body stands precariously balanced on three thin legs, radiating, despite its voluminous form – depending on its weighting, material and colouring – a certain lightness. It is a graphic depiction of proportion and weight, of mass and volume, of load distribution and load-bearing capacity.

The examination of these themes is also the starting point for Haberpointner’s curved, almost baroque, bulbous “Hooks” in different materials. Notions of weight, carrying and being carried are evident in the image of the load hook. At the same time, this form, as a sign, contains additional layers of meaning: it points to hooks with other functions and in the most varied contexts (one thinks of fish hooks, boat hooks or tail hooks, for example), as well as to the manifold figurative uses of the term.

With his wall objects, by contrast, Alfred Haberpointner creates imaginary spaces. In each case, the starting material is one or more spruce wood sheets, into which the artist – untiringly and with great concentration – makes careful cuts with an axe in a continuing, rhythmical hacking motion. The linear fluting of the surface structure worked in this way – at times in concentric circles, at times radially – seems to reach out into the surrounding space, or to absorb it. The denser texture and darker or lighter colouring at the centre of the works intensify their dynamic spatial impact and suggestive power.

After graduating from the College of Sculpture in Hallein, Alfred Haberpointner (born in 1966 in Ebenau, near Salzburg) went on to study at the Academy of Art and Design in Linz (1985-91), and in 1992 he already held his first solo exhibition. Since then, he has won numerous grants and prizes for his original work, and has regularly been exhibited internationally – in cities such as Paris, Prague, Vienna or Zurich, Dubai or Miami. His works form part of important private collections and can be seen in leading public museums – for example the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg, Austria, the Beelden aan Zee Museum in the Netherlands, or the Würth Museum in Germany. Haberpointner has twice taken part in the Blickachsen Sculpture Biennale and his three-metre-high outdoor sculpture “Kopf im Kopf” (Head in Head) is on permanent display at the Campus Westend of the Goethe University in Frankfurt.

The current “Alfred Haberpointner” solo exhibition in the Galerie Scheffel can be seen until 29 October 2022. It will be open Tuesdays to Fridays from 2-7pm and on Saturdays from 11am-3pm (Ferdinandstraße 19, 61348 Bad Homburg v.d.Höhe, Germany).

We will be happy to provide press photos free of charge.

Download press release (PDF)