History of Austrian Sculpture Park

Emil Breisach, former managing director of the ORF Styrian provincial studios, sustained the notion that contemporary sculptures and viewers need to be granted a lieu of inter-action in public space and not only in museums. In 1981 he began to show works on the grounds of the studio which were the starting point for the idea of creating an adequate placement for Austrian sculpture in correspondence with international art.

The ideal site for a generously laid-out sculpture park was found in the 7 hectare covering park designed by Dieter Kienast, the well-known landscape architect from Switzerland in 2000 for the international garden show held in Unterpremstätten 7 km South of Graz.

The Austrian Sculpture Park Foundation was founded in cooperation with the PORR AG and the Province of Styria; its Board of Trustees consisting of Nikolaus Breisach, Hermann Eisenköck and Ralph Schilcher. It served as a basis for the concept of an international sculpture park co-initiated by Christa Steinle, head of the Neue Galerie Graz, and devised by Peter Weibel which in 2003 could be presented to the public.

To protect the park which to date contains 50 sculptures and to put it in a well founded scientific context as well as place it in a wide spread art-culture environment and at the same time make it accessible to an even broader public, Kurt Flecker, Styria's cultural consultant, in accordance with the Private Foundation facilitated the sculpture park's takeover by the Landesmuseum Joanneum under the manangement of Elisabeth Fiedler.