Gottfried Bechtold is considered one of the defining figures of Austrian contemporary art. Since the late 1960s, he has developed a rigorously conceptual, cross-media practice encompassing sculpture, photography, drawing, text, and performative interventions in public space. His work is characterized by a precise analysis of social symbols and a sustained inquiry into perception, attribution of value, and the very conditions of artistic production. Bechtold gained international recognition in particular for his engagement with the automobile as a cultural, economic, and ideological object. Since the 1970s, he has explored the car as a projection surface for beliefs in progress, promises of mobility, notions of status, and ideas of individual freedom. The Concrete Porsche is among Bechtold’s most iconic works. The catalog, edited by Verena Kaspar-Eisert and Rolf H. Johannsen, brings together key aspects of Bechtold’s work and offers a concise insight into an artistic practice that has lost none of its analytical sharpness and relevance to this day.
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