Karl Prantl, founder of the "Symposion Europäischer Bildhauer"             
in St. Margarethen

Karl Prantl (* 5. November, 1923 in Pöttsching/Burgenland State) is an Austrian sculptor. He initiated and founded world's first "Steinbildhauersymposion" ("Stone Sculptors Workshop"). 

As a trained painter of the Vienna Academy of Arts he switched to sculpture in 1950. Later on he exclusively works with stone. Prantl is also well known for his "Meditation Stones", often showing monumental dimensions.

Karl Prantl, Eberhard Hauff, Maria Stadlmann
Taufstein, 19??, Amazonit

Stein zur Meditation, Engel, 1987-88,
Serpentin-Tauerngrün

Personal comment

In October 2007 I had the great pleasure of an extensive conversation with Mr. Prantl on the grounds of his private sculpture garden. In an extremely open, attentive and interested way, he shared his manifold experience with sculpture symposia, explained the background and intensions of his artistic oeuvre and his view on the essence and life of stones. Characteristic for Karl Prantl is his perseverant pursuit of his political convictions and objectives in the framework of sculpture symposia, as well as the high degree of inwardness and sensibility in his own sculptural work.

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Karl Prantls' motives:
“Become free. Think free”, those are the basic thoughts of Prantl. The horror of World War II forced him to ambitious actions with religious and public influence. To handle small stones aesthetically in the narrowness of his atelier couldn't be sufficient to him in the long run.

Besides the exchange of experience between world wide colleagues - who later organized workshops in their home countries according to Prantl's role model - the emphasis always is put on the political intention.
From the beginning he fights against the Iron Curtain and The Wall: From September 1961 - August 1962, he tries to establish sculptures at "Platz der Republik" (Berlin/DDR) as a human message: ..."We did trie to abolish The Wall ..."

Development of Artists' Symposien:
In 1959 he founded the "Bildhauersymposion in St. Margarethen" in Burgenland State/Austria, which can be seen as the archetype for "Symposien" all over the world.
This so called "1. Symposium europäischer Bildhauer" ("1. European Sculptors' Workshop") led sculptors for the next three decades to meetings at wide spread historical locations and border areas: to Berlin, to Negev desert/Sinai, to the Interstate Highway from New York to Vermont, to Frenswegen Monastery (Nordhorn/Germany), to St. Johann in Saarland State (Germany) or to Patiala-Punjab in India.

From 1959 to the 70th more than hundred stone sculptures and Land Art installations were created at several "Symposia of European Sculptors" in and near the quarry of
St. Margarethen.

Further early stone sculptores symposia, to name but a few:
1961 Portoroz, Yugoslavia                           -  1961 - 1963 Berlin
1963 Tokyo/Japan (Olympic Games)               -  
1964 Montreal/Canada (World Exhibition)      -
from 1965 Ruzbachy, Slovakia, (earlier CSSR)  -  1965, 1969 and 1970 Oronsko/Poland
from 1967 Krastal, Kärnten/Austria                 -  1967 Springhornhof, Lower Saxony/Germany
1969, 1970 "Sculpture Field" Oggelshausen, Baden Württemberg/Germany

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Publications:
Katharina Prantl: "Gehen über den Hügel von St. Margarethen, von Stein zu Stein"
208 pages, 190 illustrations, 100 in colour, 15,4 x 15 cm, hard back
Passagen Verlag, Wien, 2004, ISBN 3-85165-657-1, - € 29,00          short review
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Marlen Dittmann, Lorenz Dittmann:
"Karl Prantl - Bildhauersymposien und große Steine 1959-2006"
120 pages, 52 illustrations in colour, 28 x 24,5 cm, hard back
Verlag St. Johann GmbH, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 3-938070-12-9, - € 34,00
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Jutta Birgit Wortmann, Bildhauersymposien, Entstehung – Entwicklung - Wandlung
Dargestellt an ausgewählten Beispielen und ergänzt durch Gespräche mit Beteiligten
Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 28, Kunstgeschichte, Bd. 421, - Lang Verlag, Frankfurt/Main, 2006, mit einer beigefügter CD-ROM, - ISBN 3-631-55273-4 € 51.50

  
Stones by Karl Prantl in Pöttsching