JOURNEY TO INNER SELF

Graz, Austria (2005)

Thesis Project for the "Masterclasses of Art and Design" - section sculpturing

A bronze statue is standing on the floor. 85 kilograms of chocolate are applied to the sculpture and formed into the shape of a bodybuilder. When the chocolate sculpture is finished, the chocolate is melted away, revealing the bronze statue. The chocolate, therefore, serves as a human shell that disconnects from its inner self through time and eventually falls away.
My final presentation was given in Spanish, English, and German, in order to emphasize and do justice to the multicultural togetherness of our time.

Bronze and chocolate sculpture by Gerhard Petzl.

Topic: “Globalization – the Journey to the Inner Self“

An Interview with the artist:

For his thesis project Gerhard chose to realize his thoughts on the given topic of “globalization” in a very personal way, since his own life was and is “globalized”.

Gerhard, tell us please about your idea for this project:

GP: Since I was 3, I have spent some part of each year in another country. As of now, I have had the pleasure to have lived in or visited over 30 countries. However, the more I see of the world, the more I feel the need to turn inwards, to find the impressions I have collected inside myself. Outwardly, you see the world as it seems, and inwardly, you find it as it is, in its essence.

I invite my viewers to join me on my very personal “Journey to the Inner Self”.

The Project:

A bronze statue is standing on the floor. 85 kilograms of chocolate is applied to the sculpture and formed into the shape of a bodybuilder. When the chocolate sculpture is finished, the chocolate is melted away, revealing the bronze statue. The chocolate, therefore, serves as a human shell that disconnects from its inner self through time and eventually falls away.

During the building of the chocolate sculpture, one can see me in the pictures. During the melting phase, however, I am absent. What remains is the core, which, through the bronze material, will outlive me through the next several thousand years.

The presentation of the pictures of the application of the chocolate sculpture, the completion and the melting process were accompanied by a piece of music I composed, called “Global Medley”.

The music is a composition of of around 20 different

pieces of music, including several pieces I recorded myself with a microphone.

The Global Medley begins with a Rock ’n’ Roll piece, since Rock ’n’ Roll played an important role in globalisation, beginning in the postwar era and early 1960s with the “Americanisation” of Europe. The medley also includes an Indian man I interviewed at the airport in Graz, Austria, as well as a Serbian who tells the story of his life, and an Egyptian dishwasher living as a “guest worker” in Austria, who thanks Allah in Arabic.

Each of these people has left their homeland, thereby becoming part of the globalised movement.

My final presentation was given in Spanish, English, and German, in order to emphasize and do justice to the multicultural togetherness of our time.