In Geteiltes Bild from 1986, Günther Uecker applies the black paint directly to the unprimed canvas with his fingers – a direct, physical gesture similar to the works of Kazuo Shiraga. The nails hammered into the canvas mounted on a wooden panel pick up the movements of the strokes in every direction. This creates a swirling centre around the heart of the picture, reinforcing the effect of the impact of the axe and the separation of the picture into two halves. Uecker became a member of the artist group ZERO in 1961, founded by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene. Zen Buddhism was a major influence and they regarded ZERO as both the void which followed ‘Stunde null’ – the idea of a new artistic beginning after the Second World War – and as a wealth of new possibilities.
Günther Uecker (*1930)
Geteiltes Bild, 1986
Currently exhibited: Yes (Gallery: From Zero to Action)
Material: Black acyrlic paint and nails on canvas on wood, chopped by the artist
Size: 150.5 x 150 x 20 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_023
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Keywords:
Previous owner: Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Grisebach, Berlin, 2009
Solo exhibitions:
2006
‘Günther Uecker – Das Eigentliche….’, Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg
‘Günther Uecker. Zwanzig Kapitel und Aquarelle’, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Neue Nationalgalerie, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin
Born in 1930, Günther Uecker became known for his relief-like nail paintings as early as 1957. He was inspired by agricultural work and sought to achieve with his art the same state of self-oblivion through constant repetition of the same activity. This is a technique well known in Zen Buddhism and one applied by Lucio Fontana when he created his slit canvases called Concetto Spaziale (spatial concept) from 1949 onwards. The traditional panel painting was destroyed, we could now see the space which lay behind the painting. Uecker, strongly influenced by Fontana, now brings the picture into the room by letting the nails hammered into the work protrude from the canvas.
Movement and time are added as new dimensions as the light and the shadows change over time. The pictures this creates are always the result of a moment, a specific expression that cannot be repeated; Uecker does not correct anything afterwards. The gesture of hammering nails into the picture – a violent intrusion, a disruptive factor – evokes several associations. Artistically, it is a rebellious rejection of painting, but for Uecker it is also a personal memory of his childhood during the Second World War, when he nailed windows and doors shut to protect himself from Russian soldiers. In 2017, he spoke of his art in relation to his experience of the war: ‘… we, as children of these events so to speak, as heirs of guilt, who knew what happened […] tried to find new reasons, a new reason to live.’ [1]
In Geteiltes Bild from 1986, Günther Uecker applies the black paint directly to the unprimed canvas with his fingers – a direct, physical gesture similar to the works of Kazuo Shiraga. The nails pick up the movements of the strokes in every direction and complement the painting. This creates a swirling centre around the heart of the picture, reinforcing the effect of the impact of the axe and the separation of the picture into two halves. The brutality of the gesture implies injury, destruction and aggression.
Uecker became a member of the artist group ZERO in 1961, founded by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene. Zen Buddhism was a major influence and they regarded ZERO as both the void which followed ‘Stunde null’ – the idea of a new artistic beginning after the Second World War – and as a wealth of new possibilities. Together, the three artists exhibited a ‘light room’ at the now legendary documenta III in 1964, which they dedicated to Lucio Fontana. Seven kinetic objects draw with light in the darkened room, supplemented by the slide projection of a cut-open canvas by Fontana.
[1] Günther Uecker Interview: Poetry Made with a Hammer, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk 2017, here 1:43–2:00 min.
