„Automobiles may perhaps one day be banned from further circulation, but giant-size highways, monumental parking lots, satellite cities and shopping centers will nonetheless remain as reminders of all the wonderful dreams that turned instead into nightmares, decking our reality with strangely ominous science-fiction scenarios.
Gottfried Bechtold is fascinated by drama of this hopeless love affair. Its pursuit can only finish with a deadlock; the intentions that inspired it reveal themselves to be utterly at odds with its final denouement. It was in 1971 when Gottfried Bechtold casted his first Betonporsche, as a original sized three-dimensional facsimile-concrete-sculpture.”
Marc Mansfield 1996

Gottfried Bechtold, born in Bregenz/Austria in 1947
Permanent projects: 1972 Betonporsche, Galerie Ursula Krinzinger, Bregenz, has been parkied since 1973, in the pariking lot of the University of Konstanz, Germany;
1987 Intercontinental Sculpture, International Center, Vienna; 1988 VKW AG, Bregenz; 1991 Artterminal 1991 – 2002, Bregenz; Schiene Mader, 4th Ushimado Biennial Japan (Bechtold, Kapoor, Kawamata, Nomura); 1995 HTBLA Kaindorf, Kaindorf an der Sulm, Styria /Austria; 1996 Vorarlberger Medienhaus, Schwarzach/Austria; 2001 „Meantime“ – Pathway Sculpture, Südtiroler State Museum, Schloss Tirol, Merano, Italy; 2002 Betonporsche II “Crash Porsche 993” – first touring presentation Bregenz/Leutbühel/Austria - Schloß Ambras, Co-Exhibition “Unter freiem Himmel” Galerie Elisabeth und Klaus Thoman, Innsbruck/Austria – 2003 outdoor Kunsthaus Bregenz - Zurich/Oerlikon/Switzerland, ORF TV studios in Dornbirn/Austria (courtesy Galerie Lisi Hämmerle) 2003 stone sculpture “Allah ist groß” and “Signatur-Sculptur”, Silvretta Stausee, Austria, Co-Exhibition “Medium Berge” curated by Oscar Sandner.
Selected group exhibitions: documenta 1972, curated by Harald Szeeman, Kassel, Germany; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Trigon 73 Graz/Austria; Museo de la Solidaridad, Santiago de Chile; Kunst aus Sprache, Museum des 20. Jahrhundert, Vienna; “Video, made in Austria”, Vienna; 2005 Generali Foundation Collection „Occupying Space“, Vienna, Munich/Germany
Selected exhibitions since 1993: “Graz Bregenz Bozen,” Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz/Austria, Magazin4 –Vorarlberger Kunstverein, Bregenz, Galerie Museum, Bolzano/Italy;1996 Galleria Banchi Nuovi, Rome/Italy; Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz; Kunsthalle im Museumsquartier, Messepalast, Vienna, 2001 „Zwischenzeit“, Galerie Lisi Hämmerle, Bregenz, 2002 Crash Porsche 993 “Kids-Line,” with „The Hell Fire Touring Club,” Kunsthalle Wien, Project Wall.