Where are you? Sculptures by Erwin Eisch

Where are you? Sculptures by Erwin Eisch
Erwin Eisch: Hommage à Picasso, 2000; Mold-blown, painted
H 42 x 34 x 37 cm
Photo: H.-J. Becker
© Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung
The sculptor and painter Erwin Eisch, pioneer and driving force of the international studio
glass movement has worked with diverse themes and techniques during his sixty-year
career. The current exhibition of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung shows the multifaceted
work of Erwin Eisch from 15 October 2013 to 10 April 2014. Characteristic is his critical
analysis of his environment and his very distinct humor in alienating everyday things.
One focus of the exhibition lies on the impressive series of large portrait heads he made
of his contemporaries and celebrities, as well as his self-portraits. They convey an
impression of Eisch’s innovative sculptural and painterly language and his remarkable
technique: The portraits consist of blown glass that he painted in such a manner that
viewers can only just intuit the original material.
The exhibition also presents Erwin Eisch’s early works. These objects of free-formed glass
are rarely seen. As son of a glassmaker family and graduate of the Akademie der
Bildenden Künste München, Eisch regarded the glassmaker tradition critically and
experimented with the material glass at his family’s glass furnace in the 1950s and 60s. In
contrast to the typical glass production in the Bavarian Forest, Erwin Eisch developed
specifically non-functional objects alienated from any purpose. They were exhibited in
various galleries in the Bavarian Forest where Harvey K. Littleton, an American ceramic
professor, discovered them when he was traveling in Europe seeking new artistic ways of
working with glass. Thus began the lifelong friendship and artistic exchange between
Eisch and Littleton in Frauenau in 1962.
This encounter was one of the important impulses for the international
studio-glass movement, which celebrated its fiftieth jubilee around the world in 2012.
With the studio-glass movement, the material glass underwent a dramatic change: away
from decorative functional forms such as vases or bowls to objects and sculptures with
ambiguous messages.
The third area the current exhibition reviews is Erwin Eisch’s colorful period at the art
academy in Munich. While he was still a student, Eisch became a founding member of the
SPUR group in 1957 and a few years later formed the notorious group RADAMA. The Art
Nouveau villa of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung in Munich-Schwabing is the ideal
backdrop for this retrospective. It was in a gallery in Schwabing that RADAMA staged an
unforgettable event in 1961: The exhibition about the fictional painter Bolus Krim. The
hoodwinked critics cried “scandal” and the established art scene was deeply shocked.
With the help of newspaper articles and other documents, as well as sculptures and
paintings from the period, the present exhibition revives this project.
With “Wo bist du? Skulpturen von Erwin Eisch” (Where are you? Sculptures by Erwin
Eisch), the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung begins a new series of exhibitions. After shows
focusing on countries and themes, the foundation now presents a series on outstanding
artists who used glass as a medium for artistic expression in their work.
Opening: Thursday, 10 October 2013, from 6 to 9 pm (by invitation only)
Duration of the exhibition: 15 October 2013 to 10 April 2014
Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung
Karl-Theodor-Straße 27
80803 München | Germany
Tel. +49-89-343856
[email protected]
www.atutsek-stiftung.de