Walter Moroder

Walter Moroder (born 10 May 1963 in Ortisei in Val Gardena, Italy ) is a contemporary South Tyrolean sculptor and draftsman.

Biography Walter Moroder is the son of the Val Gardena sculptor David Moroder. From 1977 to 1980 he attained a diploma at the State-run Art School in Ortisei in Val Gardena. After apprenticeship training in the father's studio, from 1983 to 1988 he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, in 1987 he studied as a master's degree student under Hans Ladner.

Moroder's interest in non-European cultures led him on to study trips to Mexico and Guatemala in 1987, as well as to Egypt in 1994, and to Sulawesi and Java in 1996. In 2001 Moroder resigned from his job and decided to live drawing and modelling at the State Vocational School for Sculpture in Ortisei. He lives as a freelance artist in Ortisei in Val Gardena.

Style and pieces Walter Moroder is well versed in drawing and large-format woodcuts, his artistic motive is sculptural and sculptural and results from experiences of inadequacy with the south tyrolenian sculptural tradition. The artist mainly uses wood, plaster and also casts in bronze.

One of Moroder's core subjects is the human figure; predominantly female figures and female bodies. Moroder represents his subjects standing in a waiting posture with slim proportions without any recognizable relationship to the real space - except for the floor - and mostly without a pedestal or elevation.

In the design of the details such as clothing, hands, feet, mouth or throat encrypted gestures and archaic images similar to the Greek, Egyptian and Asian influences in conjunction with elements of a non-everyday life-world can be observed. Moroder represents well known opposites between visible and invisible, male and female, concealment and nudity, body and mind, feeling and psyche.

The main theme in these works often revolves around experiences of ambivalence such as grace and grace, around androgynous identities, around the aura and presence of the absent, around the experience of death and fascination.

When working in the studio, Moroder generally avoids a living model when looking for forms and avoids any realism and narrative content. A number of individual works illustrate the disappearance of the human figure or they turn out to be precarious existences in sewn, perforated, segmented bodies or torsos.

Exhibitions 2000: Chiusa City Museum 2003: Galerie Appel, Frankfurt am Main 2004: Steirischer Herbst, Galerie Tazl, Graz 2005: Galerie Chobot, Vienna 2008/09: with Alberto Giacometti - Sinclair-Haus, Bad Homburg; Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Berlin 2010: Gallery for Contemporary Art Leipzig 2011: Osthaus Museum Hagen, Altana Kulturstiftung, Hagen 2012: Sochi Art Museum, Russia 2012: 3rd Gherdeina Biennale, Ortisei, Val Gardena 2012: Rathausgalerie Brixen 2013: Kunsthaus Meran 2014: Albert Baumgarten Gallery, Freiburg im Breisgau 2015: Galerie Doris Ghetta, Ortisei, Val Gardena; Portraits, National Museum, New York 2017: Nzaul d'auter - Somewhere else, Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern; Galleria Civica di Trento, Trento 2018: Sun plaza, Galerie Doris Ghetta, Val Gardena 2019: Behind the things, Hildesheim Cathedral Museum; Chobot Gallery, Vienna