Walter Pichler has never been very concerned with making his art public. The last large-scale exhibition to include his work was the Venice Biennale in 1982, and his sculptures are to be found in only three public collections. Yet his place in the art world of the past two decades is secure. Although there are drawings by Pichler on the market, he rarely parts with his sculptures. They are components of an overall concept in which the identity between art and life has been given a new dimension.

For the past 15 years Pichler has been living on a farm in Saint Martin, in the sparsest, most isolated