Susanne Schmögner
Terracotta Face, 1992
Artwork Brief Description
Schmögner’s *Terracotta Face* explores the tension between the natural and the artificial. Hidden within the garden, its mask-like appearance is both welcoming and unsettling, questioning perception. The sculpture’s primitive design, surreal facial features, and heraldic shield-like form create a dialogue between ancient traditions and modern surrealism.
Susanne Schmögner was one of the very first and most significant contributors to the Heller garden from the moment André Heller decided to start the project. They often collaborated on artistic projects together, beginning with his 1987 “Luna Luna”. For this Schmögner created something that was truly original and inventive, far from the traditional world of picture galleries and museums, it was a wholly immersive experience. She made a spiral-shaped labyrinth from hand-painted sets of gridded and coiled lines, in which she incorporated flocks of birds and tumbling flowers. She created a black and gold deity-like sculpture at the centre of the labyrinth, next to whom a smaller cat-like figure handed viewers a copy of French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud’s “Golden Age”. The text of Rimbaud’s poem speaks of the power of works of art to transcend reality, something that Schmonger strives for in her practice.
Her work in Gardone began with the decoration of the ticket office, transforming something functional into something fantastic. The mere act of decorating the ticket office is a perfect metaphor for Schmögner’s art, disguising the everyday in order to challenge our beliefs of what is real and what is imagined.
The idea of art being able to suspend our disbelief is at the very core of her practice.
Susanne Schmögner (Austrian b. 1939) Terracotta Face, 1992
This sculpture is the perfect embodiment of Susanne Schmögner’s fascination with the tension between the natural and the artificial. Almost entirely hidden from view, this dainty sculpture blends perfectly with its environment. Its wooden base echoes the surrounding tree trunks and vegetation, and its camouflage appearance creates a tension between the visible and the invisible, with the real and the imagined, both key tropes of surrealism. Ambiguity is key to Schmögner’s imagery, and here, the figure’s outstretched arms create a sense of warmth and openness, and yet, when taken into context of the mask-like appearance, it could suggest a state of surrender. By making her character markedly “other” Schmögner encourages the viewer to continually question what they see.
The terracotta surface of the face recalls ancient Greek art giving the sculpture a classical, almost archaic quality. There is a sense of primitivism that Schmoenger heightens through her deliberately minimalist facial features made from only a few rudimentary markings. Despite the simplicity of the facial features, the actual shape of the face itself is similar to heraldic shields or coats of armour. In this way, Schmonger uses simple forms to juxtapose the ancient world and more modern ideas of war and battle with an element of fantasy.
The features on the face are very surreal, with an extra pair of eyes and a tree-like depiction of the nose and eyebrows. Yet, rather than suggest any ugliness or disorder they blend together and fit the overall symmetry of the face, creating a harmony and balance to the face that seems both primitive and natural.
There is a constant sense of comparison within the sculpture, be it the ancient and modern or the real and surreal. Schmögner shows her ability to infuse the ordinary with elements of dream and reverie to make us question what we see.