About Ottmar Hörl – Gnome – Orange Sponti Key Ring (1994/2006)

This colorful and amusing Orange Sponti Key Ring (1994/2006) features one of the iconic middle finger gnomes first displayed by the conceptual contemporary German artist Ottmar Hörl in his sculptural project “Rolling Change” at Seligenstadt in 1994. During the sculptural project “Rolling Change”, Hörl displayed 1000 blue gnomes distributed across the city. Although the work was initially intended to be a public work, the artist intentionally allowed viewers in the city to take the amusing gnomes to their homes, thus blurring the lines between public and private works of art. Hörl’s “Rolling Change” sculptural project was reissued in 2006 at the Kunst Rai at the Maisenbacher Art Gallery Trier in Berlin. More details on Ottmar Hörl’s Orange Sponti Key Ring:

• Dimensions: 2.56″ x 1.8″ x 1.8″ inches
• Weight: 0.2 lbs (est)
• Material: Plastic
• Color: Orange
• Original: Sculptural project “Rolling Change”, Seligenstadt, 1994; Reissue 2006 (Maisenbacher Art Gallery Trier, Berlin)

About Ottmar Hörl

Born in 1950 in Nauheim, Germany the German conceptual artist Ottmar Hörl moved to Frankfurt am Main in 1975 to study at the Academy of Fine Arts and continued his studies in 1979 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf. In 1985 Hörl founded the group Fomalhaut, with the architects Gabriela Seifert and Götz Stöckmann. In 1992-93 Ottmar Hörl received a visiting professorship with the group Fomalhaut at Gratz University of Technology in Austria. Hörl’s ability to raise social commentaries and challenges on art through his playful artworks have led him to have a successful artistic trajectory and be the recipient of multiple awards throughout his career. Hörl through his public space installations and the use of plastic to make his mass-reproduced sculptures aim to destroy the elitist elements of art that separate it from the viewer, and successfully promote his own worldview of art by encouraging interaction and conversation between his artworks and –not just some- but everyone in society.