The Austrian is one of the most impor­tant sculp­tors of his gener­a­tion. From the early 1960s onwards, he created a highly idio­syn­cratic oeuvre defined by a distinctly personal visual language. He succeeded with one new group of works after another in devising for each an unmis­tak­able and surprising voice.

The focus of his artistic work was on the human being and the abysses of human life. Giron­coli’s aesthetic of immod­er­a­tion and opulence, which regu­larly gave rise to excres­cences and curlicues, inspired count­less younger artists.

With this inci­sive exhi­bi­tion, the SCHIRN is presenting sections from Giron­coli’s later works. The monu­mental sculp­tures resemble so many proto­types of a new species, enveloped in shining, seduc­tive surfaces of gold, silver, and copper. Foreign and yet familiar, their organic forms and the set sections in them stem from an everyday culture that is often oriented toward the local: You soon think you can discern a wine barrel, an ear of wheat, or a vine. Then again, Giron­coli stages a strange parade of infants or an imposing ant-like sculp­ture. His magnif­i­cent and unset­tling works never fail to impress succes­sive gener­a­tions of viewers.