Othmar Prenner

Wood, metal · b. 1966, Schlanders, Italy

Othmar Prenner was born in Schlanders, South Tyrol, in 1966 and grew up in the Münster Valley. He trained as a carpenter, studied sculpture in Innsbruck, working across wood, stone, metal and ceramics, and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In Munich he went on to produce and photograph exhibitions for Sprüth Magers, working with artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Jenny Holzer and Sylvie Fleury.

He lives and works on a mountain farm in the Langtaufers Valley in Upper Vinschgau, which he rebuilt himself. In 2010 he began using fire as a tool, and his vessels in black-burned wood have since become a signature. His work moves between sculpture and use: pepper mills, bread boxes in wood and soapstone, forged knives and, most recently, sculptural chests in wood. In 2024 he received the Bavarian State Prize for a mortar carved from Lasa marble.

With friends, he has turned Bunker 23, a fortification near Tartsch built under Mussolini between 1938 and 1942, into a venue for art, craft and design, with a caravan jutting out of its four-metre-thick walls. Its exhibitions refuse any hierarchy between art and craft.