Josef Kostner - heads and stubborn heads

07.06 - 01.07.24

A passion is always associated with consistency and enthusiasm. For the artist Josef Kostner, art was more than a passion, it was his life, a purpose in life that was difficult to satisfy. He sought the challenge of the irrational, the pleasure of touching, seeing, and tasting.  An urge that would not let him go, an urge that drove him to break out of the conventions of everyday life, against the tide!

Josef Kostner and art needed each other. Art gave him harmony and joy, he gave it his creative, curiosity-driven soul. How often did he repeat that he had so many ideas in his head that he couldn't realise them all. After all, creativity is by nature a regenerative state, a constant process of inner rebirth that cannot be contained by daily routine.

A curious person is always curious and eager to learn. Kostner was tormented far too much by thoughts and feelings that he absolutely had to let go of. Although art sometimes exhausted him, he longed for it. His intimate, personal need for self-reflection and recollection was kindled in his studio. His works can be seen as a diary of what he experienced and learnt. For Josef Kostner, art was a way of liberation - not only from everyday life, but also from artistic constraints and conventions. Josef Kostner's sculptures reflect the diversity and expressive possibilities of sculpture in the 20th century. His confrontation (destruction) with the prevailing and traditional image of man was the basis for his creations, to which he lent an inner image.