Kunstmuseum Singen

The sculptor Rudolf Wachter (1923 Bernried / Lake of Constance - 2011 Munich) discovered wood sculpture late in the 1970s. In just four decades, however, he created a body of work that made him an innovator of wood sculpture in the 20th century. Rudolf Wachter creates simple, yet fundamental works in which nature and art work together symbiotically: “I work with the wood and the wood works with me,” is Rudolf Wachter’s credo.

The shaping cut with the chainsaw deep into the trunk, the inclusion of natural growth and shrinkage processes in the design - primarily the cracking and branching of the wood -, the opening of the trunk and the inclusion of space in it, but also that Playing through basic movements and rotations, postures and positions determine Wachter's sculptures, which are always intended to be monumental and usually designed from all sides. In numerous work groups he examined the potential of his material and its forms. With his dual approach of incorporating the organically grown materiality of the trunk into the artistically processed form, he made a unique contribution to contemporary sculpture. “I no longer composed (…), but looked at nature and saw a sculpture in it” (Rudolf Wachter).

The Singen Art Museum is showing the retrospective of Rudolf Wachter's 100th birthday in cooperation with the Wachter estate, the Museum Lothar Fischer Neumarkt i.d.OPf., the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and the Galerie Werner Wohlwachter Leibertingen-Thalheim. We thank Veronika Wachter, Dr. Pia Dornacher, Werner and Gerlinde Wohlwachter, Prof. Florian Fischer and Dr. Stefanje Weinmayr for the collaboration.