Ucki Kossdorff

With a reading from her newly published ART biography "UCKI KOSSDORFF – der verdichtete Mensch" and an exhibition with reading at the Seeschloss Ort, the Gmunden-born artist draws a special arc between her origins and the present. It is a return to the very place where her early relationship with the material clay developed – to a town that has stood for ceramics and sculpture for centuries. Ucki Kossdorff is today counted among Austria's most distinguished sculptors. Her work has always revolved exclusively around the human being: around dignity and vulnerability, closeness and distance, memory and identity. She first became known for expressive, naturalistic figures and portraits. Over the course of her career, she developed an unmistakable formal language in which she condenses human bodies to their elemental essence – powerful, block-like sculptures that point far beyond the visible. This extraordinary artistic development is documented in the 345-page work "UCKI KOSSDORFF – der verdichtete Mensch." It brings together more than 230 images of works from international exhibitions, biographical and philosophical texts, as well as video material via QR codes, and offers a comprehensive insight into the artist's life work. The reading will be presented together with her son Jan Kossdorff. Personal stories about famous portraits, encounters, and the creation of her most significant works make the evening both an intimate and inspiring encounter with one of the most distinctive figures in Austrian sculpture. At the heart of the reading are the stories behind her sculptures – above all her encounters with Thomas Bernhard, whose nature and contradictions she captured in one of her most striking portrait sculptures. Why even a legendary curmudgeon can be lovable is something Kossdorff, together with her son Jan, recounts – just as she tells the story of how her works depicting Nelson Mandela, the globally unique DenkerIN (Thinker), and her radically reduced body sculptures came into being.