This year, as usual, Palazzo Tullio-Altan hosts a solo exhibition of the winner of the last edition of the In Sesto Prize, Maria Walcher. The South Tyrolean artist exhibits her work Tocca a te (‘It’s your turn’, 2020), a sculpture made of an unstable brick tower that leans on a concrete base shaped like a tree trunk. Inspired by the game of Jenga—the surrounding trees acting as the players—the installation alludes to the precariousness in which we are currently living, but also to the responsibility that everyone must take on in this particular socio-historical moment.
Furthermore, Maria Walcher proposes a site-specific installation purposely designed for the space on the ground floor of the Palazzo Tullio-Altan, and a selection of more recent works linked to the project conceived for San Vito al Tagliamento. All made over the last year, these works offer a personal reflection of the artist during the pandemic on topics such as memory, time and life rhythms, the relationship between nature and humanity, and the dialectic between craft and conceptual research.
The works on display here completely express Maria Walcher’s aesthetics and research. With her site-specific intervention, performances, as well as experimental and participatory projects in public spaces, Walcher confronts urgent and sensitive socio-cultural problems in a playful and gently provocative way, meant to stimulate discussion and reflection.
Maria Walcher (Innsbruck, 1984) vive e lavora ad Innsbruck. Ha studiato alla University of Applied Arts di Vienna e alla Bauhaus University di Weimar, dove ha conseguito un Master in Arte Pubblica e Nuove Strategie Artistiche. Attiva come artista indipendente dal 2011, attualmente insegna nel Dipartimento di Fine Arts, Art and Craft Education all'Universität Mozarteum di Salisburgo. Sue opere sono state esposte al Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck (2018), alla Certosa Val Senales (2017), al Gorki Theater, Berlino (2015), al Kunstfest Weimar (2014), al Quartaire Contemporary Art Initiatives, Den Haag (2014) e al SOMA, Mexico City (2013).
