Bruno Gironcoli

Bruno Gironcoli’s monumental, shiny and idiosyncratic sculptures, made of iron, aluminium, tin or brass, are undeniably unique and not quite explainable. Confusingly both mechanical and organic, archaic and utopian, they stand in their structural amorphousness, almost like a new species discovered in an archaeological ruin but also coming from a distant, alien future. Here and there one can notice human-looking and made objects, like keys, horns and infants, and such recognition is disconcerting amidst the metallic unfamiliarity of Gironcoli’s gigantic creatures. The artist's practice is associated with the confusion and trauma humanity underwent through in the second half of the 20th century produced such a peculiar expression of human or non-human nature. While uncanny and existential, Gironcoli’s sculptures are also strangely comforting and humorous. Somehow, their unfamiliarity makes sense. The Austrian artist, who was born in 1936 and who died in 2010, is arguably one of the most important sculptors in his generation. First trained as a goldsmith, he proceeded to study painting. In the 1950s he became the Head of the sculpture department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna where he was a mentor to such prominent artists as Franz West, Ugo Rondinone and Hans Schabus. Written by Goldsmiths CCA