Isabell Pitscheider
∗1972, Italy
lives and works in Selva Gardena, Italy
Born in Bolzano in 1969.Attended the art school in Selva and Ortisei. Studied at the Urbino Academy of Art. Lives and works in Val Gardena.Isabell Pitscheider ultimately invents unexpected actions on the theme of "wish", which are inspired by people's wishes.
Isabell Pitscheider calls her works “Wish”: the longing for return expressed by tossing a coin into a fountain; the wish spoken aloud when we greet someone by saying “have a nice day”; the yearning the heart entrusts to shooting stars on the night of St. Lawrence; and not least, the wish embodied in the offering of a small candle lit in the Church of St. Anthony.
To these actions — which already contain within themselves the entirety of their endless repetition — the artist seeks to restore dignity and sacredness. At the same time, however, she reveals their transitory appearance and exposes their inherent sorrow. In this sense, she shares the disenchanted vision of Western Christianity and the worship of consumption expressed by the American artist Jack Pierson, who in 1996 created a cross whose arms bear the words “desire” and “desperation.” The meaningful interplay of these words illustrates how each of our requests is met with disappointment, since desire in itself remains inexhaustible even in fulfillment.
And if it is true, as Albert Einstein once claimed, that art begins where “the world ceases to be the stage of our hopes and wishes and becomes the object of free curiosity and contemplation,” then in Isabell Pitscheider’s powerful gesture we recognize an intense aesthetic quality.
By shifting the artistic theme away from its customary objects and materials and setting the pursuit of self-knowledge as its goal, Pitscheider achieves a conceptual art oriented toward the use of forms, objects, and gestures that acquire new and personal meanings. Thus, a ray of light — generated by a multitude of small flames — floods the interior and exterior space of St. Anthony’s Church with vivid shimmer. For the artist, this becomes a metaphor for the radiant spirit of life and joy, free of all expectation.
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