Arnold Reinthaler

Arnold Reinthaler’s artistic practice unfolds in the tension between concept and materiality, between language and sculpture. In his “inscriptions,” he explores questions of time, transience, and meaning by transferring fleeting, often banal text fragments permanently into stone—while simultaneously destabilizing them formally. The paradoxical union of ephemeral content and enduring medium becomes the starting point for a reflective engagement with memory, recording, and cultural coding.
In a present shaped by information overload and digital overstimulation, Reinthaler’s work marks a radical counter-movement. His conceptual inscriptions merge precise linguistic acts with the physical hardness of stone—a medium traditionally associated with permanence, authority, and cultural memory. Yet what Reinthaler engraves are not eternal truths but everyday, precarious, and often contradictory statements: “Be right back!”, “Five more minutes”, “Nothing is set in stone (yet)”.
At the core lies the question: How can the ephemeral be preserved within the permanent—and simultaneously be subverted?