Gottfried Bechtold: Concrete Porsche

A striking sculpture greets visitors at the Heidi Horten Collection: the over 16-ton Betonporsche (Concrete Porsche) by artist Gottfried Bechtold is installed directly on the “director’s parking space,“ right next to the main entrance of the museum.

With the presentation of Betonporsche, the Heidi Horten Collection highlights an important position in contemporary Austrian art. Gottfried Bechtold’s work is embedded in an ongoing discourse on material, authorship, and the cultural meaning of everyday objects. Since the late 1960s, Bechtold (b. 1947) has developed a precise, concept-driven practice across sculpture, photography, drawing, text, and actions in public space, consistently examining how objects gain value within social and economic systems.

A central motif in his work is the automobile, which he has explored for over five decades.

The Betonporsche—one of his most iconic works—is cast from an original Porsche 911. While it precisely follows the car’s form, its material radically alters its meaning. The sports car—associated with speed and mobility—is rendered in solid concrete: heavy, immobile, and architectural. This transformation creates a tension between recognition and experience.

The positioning of the Betonporsche on the “director’s parking space” is a deliberate, site-specific gesture, chosen by the museum’s new director Verena Kaspar-Eisert. A parking space is not only functional but also a marker of status and hierarchy. By occupying it with the massive sculpture by Gottfried Bechtold, it quietly questions notions of ownership, authority, and access. The work will remain in the sculpture garden in front of the museum for the foreseeable future, next to other sculptures by artists like Erwin Wurm, Miquel Barceló or Claude Lalanne, continuously shaping the spatial and conceptual experience of the museum.

The Betonporsche shifts perception: movement becomes stillness, speed becomes irrelevant, and luxury turns into stagnation. In doing so, it connects to broader conceptual strategies of the late twentieth century while remaining rooted in Bechtold’s sustained interest in repetition and transformation.

A conjunctional cabinet exhibition (until 11 October, 2026) inside the museum expands its context, featuring photographs, films, and serial works that trace Bechtold’s long-term engagement with the car motif. These works reveal the sculpture as part of an ongoing artistic inquiry shaped by repetition, variation, and documentation.

A catalogue has been published to accompany the exhibition:

Gottfried Bechtold: Betonporsche / Concrete Porsche
Edited by VfmK Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH, Ed. Verena Kaspar-Eisert, Rolf H. Johannsen; Authors: Rolf H. Johannsen, Verena Kaspar-Eisert, Christoph Weber; ISBN 978-3-99153-251-4

Collection edition
The Heidi Horten Collection presents an edition of miniature versions of Gottfried Bechtold’s legendary Betonporsche. Each sculpture is unique—shaped by time and nature. Over a period of 4 to 8 years, the artist exposed the works to the elements in the garden of his studio in Bregenz, Austria, allowing each version to develop its own distinct patina and expressive character. This special interplay between conceptual art and natural process makes every piece unmistakable. Each is signed by the artist.

Curated by Verena Kaspar-Eisert and Rolf H. Johannsen.