Cover back and front

Between September 22nd and October 31st 1979 – eighteen months after his death – the Steirischer Herbst presented a retrospective of Karl Neubacher’s work at the Stadtmuseum Graz. The exhibition was accompanied by the catalogue “Öffentliche Kunstfigur Karl Neubacher“.

The title Öffentliche Kunstfigur is a play on words, as in German ‘Kunst’ can refer to ‘art’ or ‘artificial’.
Hence the title can be translated either as ‘Public art figure’ or ‘Artificial public figure’.

Still relatively unknown, Neubacher was an Austrian Avantgarde artist who worked mainly with the mediums of photography and film. Throughout the 1970s Neubacher also worked as a graphic designer, producing several remarkable posters.
His performance pieces concentrated on using his own body. These performances were documented with film and photography, the resulting material being later incorporated by Neubacher into photomontages. Hans Georg Tropper’s photographs of the artist’s performances and conceptual works are a great document, and give a wonderful overview of this exceptional Austrian artist.

Editor Horst Gerhard Haberl

Photos by Hans Georg Tropper

With texts by Karl Neubacher, Horst Gerhard Haberl, Klaus Hoffer, Bogdan Grbic, Karl Jungwirth, Friedrich Niederl, Heinz Pammer, Wilhelm Steinböck

Published by Gesellschaft der Freunde des Grazer Stadtmuseums 1979

Soft cover
192 pages
11.2 x 18cm