Herta Pümpel:

Looking at your art, what is initially striking is the incredible wealth of forms and bodies, all apparently in motion, swarming, and superimposing themselves on each other – what are the sources of your work?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

A work emerges from a primarily internal process that is following a vision. A work can of course also begin with an idea, be precipitated by other works or personal experiences, but in the end, if you just pursue an idea, usually something results which already exists. The decisive factor is the creative process from which the work can develop beyond its own concept. I often start with an abstract form, a square, a rectangle, or a circle, a form so general that it almost forces me to explore its inherent possibilities. The underlying abstraction can frequently no longer be surmised from the opulent structures. During the history of art there has, of course, also been the opposite route from opulence to reduction, to abstraction, but such a route does not seem to make sense in terms of my own artistic activity. At the beginning, I need the white, meditative space that I can move beyond, into the complexity in which my most personal expression seems to manifest itself.

Herta Pümpel:

In thinking about the title of one of your recent exhibitions, “Ornament and Obsession.” Obsession for me describes an intuitive working process which you allow to emerge from inside you in the act of creating. Does personal experience also come into it, influences from the subconscious, from the world of dreams? Is it ultimately a form of automatism from which you create?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

It could rather be compared to the mastering of an instrument, to the internalization of musical structures and principles by a kind of practicing that doesn’t remain restrained by monotonous repetition, but generates space for the pleasure of creating and finding form. Likewise in visual art, the more I work and become involved in art, the easier it is for me to get into the flow, and more intensely so. Of course, there are also phases in which I’m more engaged in considerations of construction, but in the end the flow must enter the entire working process, otherwise it won’t work. Working in this flow is extremely pleasant and satisfying for me. The result however must be something that completely follows an inner logic, something that at times seems as precise and coherent to me as a cut crystal or a mathematical formula.

Herta Pümpel:

A personal logic, one generated by you?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Yes, any creative process should follow an inner logic. Even in an artist such as Maillol, whom I value greatly, though superficially his work seems to have very little in common with my own, there is an internal rationale to be found, in which each form and detail is right because it expresses a personal necessity. When such highly personal forms are articulated, there usually remains nothing to change, not because they are so authentic, but because in being viewed they are coherent and persuasive.

Herta Pümpel:

I would like to return to your title for a previous exhibition “Ornament und Obsession,” and to ornament. Your imagery in the broadest sense is reminiscent of ornament, a density of figures and the vegetal, arrays of juxtaposed forms – to what extent does the term ornament apply to your work? In Islamic culture, ornament denotes a higher, divine system that is essentially non-representable ­– are such notions also a concern in your work?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

The ornamental is always symbolic, it abstracts, condenses, and references more complex contexts beyond what’s actually being depicted, which is why it is found in so many religiously connoted works of art. What interests me is its blurring of divisions, as opposed to the figurative, but also, conversely, the fluid transition from the seemingly concrete to the ornamental. I find moving between these two poles very compelling, it’s like shuttling between differing states of matter, the question of balance is continually an acute one.

Herta Pümpel:

Could it be said that your art is a kind of instrument, enabling you to achieve a kind of balance within this cosmos?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

In my imagery I’m formulating counter-concepts and bringing something into the world, what I lack in it, creating a balance for myself and ideally also for the viewer.

Herta Pümpel:

How important is symmetry in this context, considering the important role it plays for you in conceiving your sculptures?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

It’s a metaphor for the balance between the internal and external world, as a projection from the inner to the outer, and vice versa, it has a symmetrical quality. But essentially, I’m constantly working against symmetry. If symmetry is not questioned, agitated, and repeatedly broken, it ossifies.

Herta Pümpel:

In the studio we just saw the individual parts of the sculpture whose structure, in its movement and dynamics, reminds me immediately of recurring cycles in nature. The densely arrayed bodies and vegetal elements are suggestive of a series of generations.

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Art has the potential of making such relationships apparent, both older as well as present day art can do that if it is good, and in doing so it places the highest demands on the recipient. But I’m not concerned with consciously representing specific notions of the world. I think that’s the wrong way to go. A work of art doesn’t reflect the world, the spiritual world, the inner world of the artist or whatever because so much of the world is packed into it, but because there’s so much art in it. The difficult question, the big secret however is: how did it get in there, or has it always been there?        

Herta Pümpel:

In some of your sculptures, there are elements evocative of sexuality and Eros. Direct references to the sexual are familiar from your earlier works. What role does sexuality play in your work? And what role does death play? I’m thinking specifically of the topoi of death and Eros in the history of art.

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Among the most fascinating examples in this context are, for me, “ Hope” by Puvis de Chavannes in the Musée d’Orsay and Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” in the Uffizi. Both images are of incredibly life-affirming eroticism and yet refer to an explicit symbolism of death that’s concealed in differing ways. While initially this is, somewhat more clearly, hinted at by Puvis in the depiction of ruins in the background, the death motif in Titian is much more concealed in the curls of Venus’s hair, whose form suggests ageing features grimacing over her left shoulder. A similarly ambiguous image can be found, on closer examination, in “Hope” by Puvis de Chavannes, whereby the olive branch, which the girl is keeping her distance from, becomes a skull. Eros represents passion, devotion, drive, and attraction, he is the symbol of the living. But the more intense and open life is, the closer it is to death, the antagonist slumbering in all living things. This is also the basis of spiritual content, separating eroticism from sexuality.

Herta Pümpel:

The first part of the title of the exhibition in Kunstraum Dornbirn “Engel über Licht und Schatten – vom erlösenden Schweigen der Form” (Angels beyond light and shadow – on the redeeming silence of form) addresses a higher, transcendent entity – could you explain that in a bit more detail?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Angels have long been a subject for me, they represent a transcendent level beyond the corporeal. Especially for me as a sculptor working with the body, the idea of angels as a counterpoint to the physical is a particularly compelling one.

Herta Pümpel:

They testify to something unfathomable, existing above the earthly, and craftsmanship.

Elmar Trenkwalder:

The angels are representative of what I can’t control, the non-tangible. Nevertheless, the title of the sculpture also addresses composition, both in the mode of the positive and negative, and the play with light and shadow, resulting from the different fashioning of forms. The central element of the work is the relief, which is thematically, so to speak, the major axis.

Herta Pümpel:

The permission, and the artist permitting himself to be influenced by external and internal influences, the risk involved in exploring these two states, and an ever-present possibility of failure – are these the ideal conditions for your work?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Failure is a prerequisite and constant challenge for artistic liberation. Doing something that you want to do is fatal in many ways, but that doesn’t mean it’s much easier to do something you don’t want to do, because the hardest part of it all is following a path that precedes intention.

Herta Pümpel:

The work that you are currently presenting at Kunstraum Dornbirn appears, at first glance, to be a magnificent façade, a richly decorated gateway. Due to its scale ­– it’s 12 meters long and 7 meters high ­– it seems to depict a massive, very impressive building. It has openings, which on closer inspection prove to be very narrow. The gate has two differently designed façades, one front and one back. Walking around and through it, I have the sense of a border-like scenario. Could you explain that further?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

In a way, I understand this sculpture to be a mirror that can be traversed. The openings are very narrow, making it is necessary to move carefully and attentively. This experience of the border, when walking around and through the work, was one that was actively sought. I often see the process of creating art as something that is only very narrowly achieved and with the greatest effort. This can convey itself to the viewer very directly. In addition, the archway’s soffit in the main portal has been modeled in the form of a figurative relief. It’s a kind of wheel of life that unfolds above the viewer as they pass through, but it can’t really be visually registered from such a position. It escapes perception, because in entering the mirror, we are simultaneously very close to our life and losing it.

Herta Pümpel:

The second part of the title, “vom erlösenden Schweigen der Form” (on the redeeming silence of form), represents to my mind the artist’s struggles during the creative process, the tenaciousness and the struggle for an ideal form that “silences,” as soon as it’s achieved. Is that true?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

In the creative process you destroy at least as much as you create. I discover something new and want to leave it that way, because it’s interesting, but it frequently doesn’t work, because the form resists. It really screams out, because this new element is not part of the balance. The entire work must remain within that balance, it’s similar to a mathematical equation. However, the image of the “redeeming silence of form” for me doesn’t primarily denote the struggling artist. I was thinking rather of works of art that to me are very silent in their perfection, although they can be simultaneously disturbing, upsetting, and meaningful, but never garrulous. Their silence for me is based more on a secret that they carry within, and within which salvation lies concealed.

Herta Pümpel:

I want to address your way of working, which in its way is both intriguing and unique. You’ve been working intensely for two years on this monumental sculpture, the largest yet in your œuvre. What’s particularly special about it is that you do everything yourself. You go to your limits not only in creating content, but also physically. How do you manage that?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Yes, I do everything by myself and that is very important to me. I feel I’m present across every inch of this sculpture. It reflects, in all its aspects, my personal experience and life. You can’t delegate that. Such a demand is a challenge, which for me is connected with immense tension, but also with a tremendous desire.

Herta Pümpel:

You’ve always been involved in addressing figures from art history – the 2014 exhibition “Contrepoint” at the Louvre was a particularly interesting situation in its intense encounters between, and juxtapositions of, contemporary and historical art. Which counterpart did you choose?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

It was a renaissance tapestry in the Salle Jean de Bologne, which had spontaneously attracted me and was appealing as a subject for a sculpture. The motif refers to the “Fall of Phaeton,” as depicted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and depicts Phaeton’s mourning sisters, transformed into poplar trees, on the banks of the Eridanus. I wanted my sculpture to create a kind of echo of this Greek legend, an extension and transformation into space.

Herta Pümpel:

The historical tapestry that was your counterpart In the Louvre makes me immediately think of your early work from the 80s, in which a carpet was shaped like a frame around a drawing.

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Yes, maybe I was even thinking about the issue of the frame. Even though the so-called carpet pictures are not, as is often assumed, framed by a carpet, but created entirely on the reverse side of a carpet, which is rolled only at the edges into a frame, whereby the back of the carpet becomes the image surface. Recognizing this unity between image support and frame is important to me, because the work was an attempt to address the border between image and frame and dissolve it in a kind of endless loop.

Herta Pümpel:

Do these works mark the step into the third dimension in your work? You originally studied painting at the academy in Vienna, you wanted to be a painter.

Elmar Trenkwalder:

I always wanted to be a painter and never a sculptor. One of my drawing teachers at the technical college in Innsbruck said that my drawings displayed a very sculptural aspect. Although I was very pleased, it didn’t make me change subject. At the time, I was completely absorbed in painting and desperately wanted to study with Max Weiler.

Herta Pümpel:

Was there a key experience that resulted in you becoming a sculptor?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

No, not at all, it was a long process that led me from painting to sculpture. Initially, there were the trompe l’oeil works that I did in the early 1980s, playing with illusion in a variety of ways, including a vexing use of materials. For example, I used papier-mâché to create frames that gave the visual impression of being very heavy. They looked like concrete, wood, or metal, but in fact they were feather-light and very fragile. In order to grasp the actual illusion, it was necessary to go beyond mere viewing and engage in a haptic level of experience.

Herta Pümpel:

Playing with the deceptive seems to have lost none of its attraction in your work. When I go into your “spaces” as a viewer, I have the illusion of entering another, very moving, pictorial, and passionately animated world.

Elmar Trenkwalder:

A play with the deceptive is a central theme in the visual arts. It creates illusions that assist the viewer in immersing themself in the world, or gaining a different perspective. For me, Monet’s water lily paintings or Turner’s landscapes are amongst the supreme illusions that are achievable in painting. This is a pure lust for seeing coupled with the ability to penetrate completely new spaces. And all this beyond any intention of merely dazzling the viewer. It’s something I also strive for in my work.

Herta Pümpel:

Is it one of the tasks of painting to broaden reality with illusion, providing the viewer with new levels and patterns of perception? The illusion of generating reality? It makes me think spontaneously of Jan Vermeer’s “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window,” the illusion exists of standing next to her, at the open window with light streaming in …

Elmar Trenkwalder:

What I mean by the “silence of form” is really summed up in Vermeer’s paintings. There is nothing that disturbs the silence of contemplation. You can only stand there and marvel at the “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window,” or the “Milkmaid,” it’s the quintessence of a moment that can hardly be experienced more intensely.

Herta Pümpel:

What role does the dream world and the subconscious play in your creative process? Has C. G. Jung’s doctrine of the archetype been of any significance?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

When I was studying, I spent time dealing in depth with my dreams. In that context, reading Carl Gustav Jung, but also Sigmund Freud was very stimulating and helpful to me.

Herta Pümpel:

Your sculptures are open to a variety of associations, including Gothic architectural elements, Indian Chandela temples, mythological subject matter, archaic cultures, and totems – are you asked about such references?

Elmar Trenkwalder:

Yes, I have been asked, but I believe that I would still have developed certain forms without knowledge of these cultures because they were already present in my imagination. They are part of our mental structure. The same is true of art brut artists, they work entirely from within, and then archetypal, complex structures rise to the surface. The art brut artists are relatively direct as they don’t always obey what society has ingrained in us as acceptable social behavior. Really, it’s just a matter of freedom, how much freedom I permit myself as an artist. I think today’s art world is a kind of social agreement, it works as a social and mercantile construct and that is not the original function of art.

Herta Pümpel:

That’s a refreshing statement to conclude with.

Thank you for the interview.