April 26, 2009, to July 25, 2009

Galerie B in Sinzheim/Baden-Baden presents sculptures by Franz Xaver Höller

Starting April 26, 2009, a new exhibition of works by artist Franz Xaver Höller will be presented at the Galerie B in Sinzheim/Baden-Baden. Franz Xaver Höller, born in 1950, is considered to be one of the best glass engraving masters worldwide. The exhibition of actual works by Höller will run until July 25, 2009.

Höller frequently creates multipart works consisting of two or more individual pieces. He borrows his visions and inspirations from nature, often using dualities as life and death or day and night – opposite pairs, that represent the unifying and dividing tendency of life. Art historian Clementine Schack von Wittenau, director of the art collection of the Veste Coburg, on the individual elements of one of Höller’s multipart objects: “… they are corrugated with nearly imperceptible creases and folds that seem to keep them moving far beyond their imminent limits. Fine pores and cracks run across the surfaces. They make one think of a hilly winter landscape seen from afar, that vanishes into the distance.”

Franz Xaver Höller has the reputation of being a border crosser in its literal as well as figurative meaning. The artist Franz Xaver Höller is exceeding the limits of glass Art, the teacher Franz Xaver Höller is crossing borders to give workshops in Australia or the United States. He lectures about borders or limits, comparing them to exploding soap bubbles. Clementine Schack von Wittenau: “Though, Franz Xaver Höller is not going that far. He doesn’t want to overextend the possibilities and applied techniques a material offers. He wants to exhaust its limits, to reveal the vulnerability of things to the eye of the beholder. For Höller, it is important to recognize the limits of life, unless you want to destroy it.”

Some of Höllers works from his “Balloon” series are to be found in the collection of the Hokkaido Museum in Japan, the Art collections of the Veste Coburg and at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. The Galerie B will display several pieces of the wafer-thin and elaborately processed “Balloon”-sculptures. By processing the surface, Franz Xaver Höller exceeds the limits of the superficial and opens the eye to the depths beyond.

Franz Xaver Höller studied glass cutting at the Glasfachschule in Zwiesel, Germany, before he earned a degree in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1978. He then started to work as a freelance sculptor. Since 1981, he has been a teacher at the Glasfachschule Zwiesel.

Höller about himself and his work: “It’s only the glass and me, and me and the glass. My work consists in constant search and discovery.”

Works in Public Collections

Kunstsammlungen Veste Coburg
The Corning Museum of Arts,
Corning New York, USA
Glasmuseum Hentrich, Düsseldorf
Glasmuseum Frauenau
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe
Musee des arts decoratifs, Lausanne, Schweiz
Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart
Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Köln
Museum Bellerive, Zürich, Schweiz
Stadt Weiden
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans –
van Beuningen – Holland
Sars – Poteries, Musee du verre – Frankreich
Ernsting Foundation – Coesfeld – Lette
Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo - Japan