Austrian Johann Meduna carved wood obsessively – almost to its destruction – in an ongoing dialogue with the material, himself and possibly the viewer
Ever since the construction of Vienna’s Narrenturm (Fool's Tower) – Europe’s first purpose-built psychiatric institution – in 1784, during the reign of Emperor Joseph II, science has undertaken research into the difference between so-called sick and healthy people, especially in relation to the brain. Another matter of exploration has long been where and under what conditions patients with mental health issues and disabilities should be accommodated. Closed institutions were used initially, the first state-organised attempt to separate people with cognitive impairments from “normal” society. When these were shut down – including the prison-like Narrenturm asylum in 1869 – they were replaced with open facilities. Ever since, society has worked towards developing empathy, awareness and the desire to treat mentally impaired people with the respect they deserve. By the time Johann Meduna was born in Vienna in 1951, the social welfare organisation Diakonie de la Tour was well established, its origins dating back to the end of the nineteenth century in southern Austria. Diakonie de la Tour went on to set up an atelier in the 1980s to support patients who had an uncontainable urge to express themselves through art. Nestled among mountains and forests, surrounded by nature, Atelier de la Tour became a creative hub.
Johann Meduna at the Atelier de la Tour in 2010; photo: Gerhard Maurer
Cognitively impaired, Meduna was a member of the Diakonie de la Tour for most of his life, and his job as a bricklayer was set up and supported by the organisation. He began attending the atelier from the age of 40 or so and, a prolific artist, created constantly, almost 24 hours a day. In the words of Christian Rudolf, his long-time assistant, mentor and companion at the atelier, Meduna was “honest, direct, very emotional, and gifted with tons of imagination”. Art was an outlet for him. “He needed it,” says Rudolf. “It made his life easier; it allowed him to process the issues that preoccupied him”
Lionel Ritchie, 2003, lime wood, height 34.5 in. / 87 cm | Pictures of the Queen, 2009, birch wood, height 30 in. / 76.5 cm
Wood was not always Meduna’s only material of choice – he also worked with stone and painted, and would draw as a form of relaxation – but wood was his passion. He made his sculptures using a hammer, chisel and the raw material provided by the atelier – Swiss stone pine, acacia, lime, beech, apple, cherry, birch, plum, poplar. He would be completely absorbed in what he was doing. He did not simply work with the wood; he entered into a dialogue with it, making the object his counterpart, something he needed as much as the air he breathed to reassure himself that he still existed. It was a symbiosis: without Meduna, there would be no piece of wood; without the wood, there would be no Meduna.
“He worked like a machine,” says Rudolf. “Only when he had finished his sculpture and started rasping the surface did he become more relaxed.” Rudolf adds that occasionally he had to prevent the artist from minimising an artwork to the size of a toothpick. With his “primordial energy and the hundred thoughts he had in his head – had he not been stopped – he would have completely destroyed” the wood.
By CHARLOTTE HRIBERNIG
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #127.
