Werner Reiterer

The basis of his artistic work is the graphic series "Gezeichneten Ausstellungen" (Drawn Exhibitions), a series of pencil drawings each measuring 70 x 50 cm, which has artistic ideas in the broadest sense as its theme and was created in 1996.
Interventions in public spaces, sculptures, photographs and technically elaborate installations, which usually actively involve the viewer in the work, emerge from this series of drawings, which the artist describes as a kind of "pool of ideas".
But "three-dimensionally unrealisable ideas" also find expression in this block of drawings. Thus, from a design point of view, the drawings adhere to a strictly maintained formalism, which in the three-dimensional works makes use of an almost unlimited variety of materials and techniques. It is not the formal style that is decisive here, but the establishment of a "style of thinking" that primarily pursues the creation of immaterial, sculptural fields.
And because Werner Reiterer's entire artistic approach is very close to the human being, these works can also often speak or breathe, asking the viewer to take certain actions. In short, the works "behave like humans on a character level". Due to the very pronounced interactive level of the works, the human being is not only actively involved in the conception and realisation of the work as a "living, sculptural material", but is also an essential component of the work.
Furthermore, Reiterer also realises and implemented numerous temporary or permanent works in public spaces. He is less interested in making a splash with huge sculptures made durable for outdoor use than in implanting sculptural components that are capable of redefining a space.
Example: "Crash" art project on Leibnitz's main square: In 2013, Werner Reiterer installed a temporary art object as part of the 100th anniversary of the city of Leibnitz. He made a car appear to crash into the Mariensäule (St Mary's Column), which is centrally located on the main square. The action cost 30,000 euros and was ended prematurely after the car fell victim to an arsonist on 17 November.
Reiterer calls this way of dealing with the situation "setting a placebo". The term placebo plays on the one hand with the idea of the medical placebo, which is able to simulate something that does not exist in reality, and on the other hand with the artistic setting of a parameter that creates a "new place" in the viewer's perception.