Atelier Wilfried Senoner

Wilfried Senoner was a craftsperson and wanted to be an artist. He lived on the craft for art's sake. He would not have been able to afford producing art without the reliable craft. And without the wish of being an artist he would presumably have remained a worse craftsperson. The one was a necessary evil for him, guaranteed his livelihood; but by doing the other he apologized for it. The handicraft had been put into his cradle. Moreover, and that distinguished him from the community of the artistic carvers and sculptors in Gröden Valley, he received an education, which must be called extraordinary: four years at the Milanese art‑academy Brera. I will never forget my visits in Wilfried's studio. The rooms and the space in front of them were crammed with overdimensioned saints, mangers and parts of altars which to display in their entity he never had the possibility. He simply lacked space for it. Its creator could at most provide you with an address: this altar and that manger would stand at a certain place in Bavaria, in the Styria, in Hungary etc. He felt obliged to produce comparatively many pieces of art.. Being an extraordinarily quickly working artist he believed to have to create a lot of pieces of art.

"Art has a mandatory function", Senoner said, ''it must make the world better": "My work is not more or less than an appeal to mankind. Senoner wants the artist to attend to his duties: Each artist must be sure of what he does." Senoner's artefacts are abstract and concrete, they digress into the surreal, because he squeezes in everything, because he overloads, because his ideas overflow. He mixes the natural and the human, winds through a maze of shapes, always remains poetic, often transfigured. However, his art is meant to scare up, it is meant to be somewhat repulsive and shocking, but at the same time it wants to solve formal and colour‑problems. This became visible in his presentation of the human being, his body, his passions and his horror‑ideas; it became visible in the body hanging at the cross and the woman who bakes bread. And even always in their reverse.

An artist who has always looked at being and at the essential, never tried to appear. Humanly he donated, especially the last year, after the serious skiing accident, a great life lesson, we will never forget.

When creating these altars and figures, the artists and craftsmen have drawn from a rich supply of virtuos hearts and historical consolidated knowledge. Such a sublime work that attracts every visitor tells us about the grace of those who created it.