(born in Wendorf in 1930)
Poesie der Destruktion, titled, signed and dated Uecker 84, direction arrow on the reverse, wood, canvas, nails, paint, 61 x 61 x 14 cm

This work is registered in the Uecker Archiv under the number GU.13.001/ GU.84.015/ GU.95.005 and will be noted for inclusion in the forthcoming Uecker Catalogue Raisonné.

Provenance:
Riva Yares Gallery, Scottsdale (label on the reverse)
Private Collection, Chicago –
acquired from the above in ca. 1985
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago
Heritage Auctions, California, 24 May 2018, Lot 77046
acquired from the above by the present owner -
Private Collection, California

Exhibited:
Scottsdale, In America: The Southwest Nail Reliefs and Sculpture 1984, Riva Yares Gallery

Günther Uecker’s nuanced artistic language expresses itself across a variety of disciplines, covering the media of painting, object art, installations, set design and film. As early as 1956/57, he undertook the radical transition from panel painting to the relief work using nails that quickly became his trademark. He adds at least one work to the ongoing series every year, creating an exceptionally varied grouping. The alignment of the nails and the interplay between light and shade allow the reliefs to develop their own dynamic movement. The nail relates to the simple work carried out by humans; when the nails come together to form structural fields, this represents the synthesis of mental and physical processes in the artistic act. Uecker sees the reliefs in nails as depictions of his biography. Everything flows into this: external events just as much as mental and physical experiences. They embody anger, impact and pain, along with a unique kind of poetry.

The work Poesie der Destruktion (Poetry of Destruction) from 1984 has an exceptional character. There is not a single nail standing vertically: every one has been hammered in at an angle and they are all arranged higgledy-piggledy over each other against a background of black and orange patches of colour. Associations with battlefields or heaps of rubble are near-inevitable. Here, the concept of a chaotic situation is transferred into a curious state of suspense as a result of the homogeneity and regularity of the structure. Uecker increasingly became involved in political matters from the 1980s onwards, as can be seen in his ash images connected to Chernobyl or in his cycle “Der geschundene Mensch” (“The oppressed person”) relating to the attacks against foreigners in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in 1992. His attitude is characterised by his struggle for peace and artistic freedom in the face of the perpetual collapse of humanity.

Recently, the artist described the complex work required for the nail reliefs as being “… like an exercise in contemplation that is struck visibly onto the surface of the image with one blow. It is also an unconscious remembering; one that oppresses and menaces, and repeatedly leads me to this manic state. Something happens there, in that moment of remembering, that transcends generations, perhaps even to the quaking of the planet or to the origin of all beings. Deep within me, I have something like a constant sense of birth that is bound to a profound darkness and also linked to the trauma of my own birth out of my mother. This is perceived as a manic process and pacified by my artistic action.”
Günther Uecker in conversation with Marion Ackermann,
28 November 2014, Günther Uecker’s studio, in:
Uecker, catalogue Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015, n.p.

This work is registered in the Uecker Archiv under the number GU.84.015 and will be noted for inclusion in the forthcoming Uecker Catalogue Raisonné.

Provenance:
Riva Yares Gallery, Scottsdale (label on the reverse)
Private Collection, Chicago –
acquired from the above in ca. 1985
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago
Heritage Auctions, California, 24 May 2018, Lot 77046
acquired from the above by the present owner -
Private Collection, California

Exhibited:
Scottsdale, In America: The Southwest Nail Reliefs and Sculpture 1984, Riva Yares Gallery

Günther Uecker’s nuanced artistic language expresses itself across a variety of disciplines, covering the media of painting, object art, installations, set design and film. As early as 1956/57, he undertook the radical transition from panel painting to the relief work using nails that quickly became his trademark. He adds at least one work to the ongoing series every year, creating an exceptionally varied grouping. The alignment of the nails and the interplay between light and shade allow the reliefs to develop their own dynamic movement. The nail relates to the simple work carried out by humans; when the nails come together to form structural fields, this represents the synthesis of mental and physical processes in the artistic act. Uecker sees the reliefs in nails as depictions of his biography. Everything flows into this: external events just as much as mental and physical experiences. They embody anger, impact and pain, along with a unique kind of poetry.

The work Poesie der Destruktion (Poetry of Destruction) from 1984 has an exceptional character. There is not a single nail standing vertically: every one has been hammered in at an angle and they are all arranged higgledy-piggledy over each other against a background of black and orange patches of colour. Associations with battlefields or heaps of rubble are near-inevitable. Here, the concept of a chaotic situation is transferred into a curious state of suspense as a result of the homogeneity and regularity of the structure. Uecker increasingly became involved in political matters from the 1980s onwards, as can be seen in his ash images connected to Chernobyl or in his cycle “Der geschundene Mensch” (“The oppressed person”) relating to the attacks against foreigners in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in 1992. His attitude is characterised by his struggle for peace and artistic freedom in the face of the perpetual collapse of humanity.

Recently, the artist described the complex work required for the nail reliefs as being “… like an exercise in contemplation that is struck visibly onto the surface of the image with one blow. It is also an unconscious remembering; one that oppresses and menaces, and repeatedly leads me to this manic state. Something happens there, in that moment of remembering, that transcends generations, perhaps even to the quaking of the planet or to the origin of all beings. Deep within me, I have something like a constant sense of birth that is bound to a profound darkness and also linked to the trauma of my own birth out of my mother. This is perceived as a manic process and pacified by my artistic action.”
Günther Uecker in conversation with Marion Ackermann,
28 November 2014, Günther Uecker’s studio, in:
Uecker, catalogue Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015, n.p.