Franz Erhard Walther (Germany) | HappenArt, Arts & Culture Platform

Franz Erhard Walther
Visual artist
Location: Hamburg (Germany)

Born in 1939 in Fulda, Germany. From 1957 to 1967 Franz Erhard Walther studied Applied Arts in Offenbach. At the Beaux-arts in Frankfurt and at the Beaux-arts in Dusseldorf. His first personal exhibition took place in 1966 in Aix-la-Chapelle. He moved to New York from 1967 to 1973. A conceptual artist, he was concerned with the relationships between language, space and work. He lives and works in Hamburg.

Werkform.

In the early 1960s, Franz Erhard Walther became interested in “the process and the temporal dimension of the work”. He makes drawings. Folding papers. Installations of simple shapes and dollages. In 1963, he introduced action as a “form of work [Werkform]”. His intervention and that of the spectator become decisive.
Subsequently, he creates Wall Formations. Huge wall panels as a place to build. In the nineties, he offered installations, the Configurations. The spectator’s participation is always necessary to bring these “floor and wall” works to life. Handle them, write the “open book” with your hands, feet and your mind.

He tells us.

“My real intention is to raise awareness by positioning myself within the work. I am, as a person, totally a plastic material in the classic sense of the term […]. I complete the work, I bring it integrity. Then it is only through the presence of my body that it becomes what it should be. By functioning as a plastic element, as a spatial element. As a classical sculptural element, the body can itself become a sculpture.”