WOLFGANG KOBER, BORN IN 1975 IN STYRIA (AUSTRIA), WORKS IN THE MEDIA SCULPTURE, PAINTING AND GRAPHICS.

TRAINING TO BE A SCULPTOR AT THE ART SCHOOL GRAZ. STUDY OF AGRICULTURE IN VIENNA.

2006 FIRST BRONZE WORKS. FROM 2007 EXHIBITION PARTICIPATION AND COMMISSIONED WORK. SINCE 2020 FREELANCE SCULPTOR.

MODELING IS THE FOCUS OF MY ARTISTIC ACTIVITIES. BUILD, CHANGE, DESIGN, CONCRETE THE FORM FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

FINALLY, THE MODELED WORK IS NOT ONLY A PRELIMINARY STATE FOR THE BRONZE CASTING, BUT ALSO AN INDEPENDENT WORK.

Since time immemorial, the bull has been a symbol of power and strength. Its imposing grace, its sublime beauty and its archaic presence have made it an object of veneration in many cultures. I am often asked where my fascination with this animal comes from. I don’t know. Perhaps the answer lies in my origins. My ancestors bred cattle for more than 400 years, so my relationship with cattle, and with the bull, is deeply rooted in my family’s history. What is certain, in any case, is that this animal has been with me since earliest childhood. I still clearly remember how, as a boy of five or six, I dug up blue clay at the edge of a field and hauled it into the barn. There I tried to model my grandfather’s bulls. Afterwards I wanted to fire the dried figures in the kitchen stove, which of course didn’t work. Later, when I could no longer spend all day in the barn, I began to draw and model the animals from memory. This way of working has stayed with me to this day. Working from memory demands even closer observation. It is not about copying outward appearances but about capturing the essence. One searches for what lies behind the visible form. After my time at the Ortweinschule, I looked for a different path and at first found it in my wish to become a cattle breeder. Studying agriculture eventually allowed me to engage intensively and scientifically with the subject of the bull. After years without any artistic activity, I began to draw, model and sculpt again. Naturally, it was once again above all bulls that held my attention. But this time I realised how difficult the undertaking had become. Many works were created, yet in the end they remained attempts to reconnect with the carefree ease with which I had worked as a child. I could depict the bull’s outward appearance, its anatomy, its musculature, its presence. But I failed to make its inner nature visible. Time and again I fell into the trap of mere reality and anatomical accuracy. What I was truly searching for remained out of reach. At some point I was ready to give up.

But then something happened that fundamentally changed my artistic path. In the autumn of 2020, I visited an exhibition at the Albertina in Vienna. I wandered through the galleries, looked at the works and finally reached the last or second-to-last room. There I encountered the works of Alberto Giacometti. The force of that moment was so overwhelming that I had to sit down. All at once I understood what I had been searching for all those years. I understood the meaning of my work. It became clear to me that art does not consist in the exact reproduction of visible reality, but in the attempt to make an inner truth visible. After all the failed attempts, I was able to start anew. Since then, numerous carved and modelled sculptures have come into being. In them, I strive to come closer to that inner reality of the bull. I haven’t fully reached it yet, but I am closer than ever before.