designed and manufactured by Hans Kupelwieser, Austria, 1989, black coated angle iron, cut and manually bent aluminium, signed and dated: KUPELWIESER 89, height approx. 72 cm, length approx. 167 cm, width approx. 85 cm. (DRAX)

A unique object.

Provenance:
the artist’s studio

“Kupelwieser’s sculptures are composed of prefabricated and semi-finished industrial components, phantasms of ready-mades, just as his photograms are material procedures. The product approximates the procedures. Both on the photo paper and in three-dimensional space, the objects – finished elements and industrial products – are moved about. Thanks to the large dimensions of the photograms, the objects are given (back) their dignity, which makes us aware of both the three-dimensional and the photographic product being sculptures and produced objects. The artist’s reflection on industrial production methods – Kupelwieser’s transformations of ready-mades – ends up in the object’s multi-valence. Kupelwieser cuts a swath through an oppressive jungle of metaphysical speculations about the possible nature of sculpture that may be noble but are far from reality.
The direct representation, the photographic reproduction of an object (a photogram) is also a clearing shedding light on the industrial production of objects. In this way, Kupelwieser the sculptor becomes a ardent photographer of the industrial world. For it is a fine art to convert rubber into a photograph, turn a photograph into a sculpture, and make iron into iron.”
(Peter Weibel, “Zur Grammatik des Raumes zwischen Skulptur und Fotografie”, 1988)