(born in Vienna in 1941)
“Bella”, bronze, go

lden brown and brown patina, on the base monogrammed, dated G. F. 1978, numbered 5/7, 35 x 18 x 20 cm

One “Bella” illustrated:
Gerda Fassel, Köpfe, Torsi & Fragmente, Katalog Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 1999, pp. 34–35;
Weibstrümmer, Die Bildhauerin Gerda Fassel, Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 2003, pp. 70–71 and pp. 68–69 (ill. plaster model)

Provenance:
Private Collection, Lower Austria

...Gerda Fassel’s art is not abstract, and it is not idealistic either. Instead, it is concrete, figurative and material, but it creates magical spaces precisely because of this – and a type of art that does not achieve this is worthless, just as a type of art that can be explained is simply superfluous because discussing it would be redundant. This type of art only serves to increase the amount of cultural clutter, whose garrulous apologists are the new artists of discourse, the real stars of the show. There is no shortage of discussion about Fassel’s sculptures, nor of art-historical parallels on the basis of style and subjects, from the Venus of Willendorf through to Brancusi and Bellmer. There is also no shortage of attempts to incorporate the external elements that simultaneously represent the most intimate aspects. But all this detracts from the essential element which can only be accessed by sensibility. Fassel’s female torsos are chthonic dream images filled with sexual power and excitement. They are both heavy and weightless, enticing and threatening, vulnerable in their openness and as tightly closed as an oyster…
Rudolf Burger in Fleischträume – from the literature cited