Footnotes

This work is registered in the Uecker Archiv, Dusseldorf, under no. GU.67.103.

Provenance
Private Collection, Rhineland
Private Collection, Rhineland
Artax Kunsthandel KG., Dusseldorf
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner



Born from a deep desire to radicalise artistic expression, Lichtscheibe from 1967 is an outstanding example from the most innovative period of Günther Uecker's career. Coming to auction for the first time, this motorised work shows the ingenuity and beauty evident in Uecker's works during this confident, creative phase that would ultimately lead to his inclusion in Documenta, Kassel in 1968 and his appointment as one of the representatives of the German Pavillion at the 35th Venice Biennale in 1970.

Having joined the still relatively young ZERO Group in 1961, the movement founded in 1957 by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, Uecker spent much of the 1960s in an environment of radical artistic change, invention and stimulation. Together they strove for an artistic tabula rasa, removing themselves from the shock and pessimism of the years following World War II and the resulting pictorial sentimentality which grew from this period. ZERO broke with established artistic conventions and transformed their creative landscape using motors, light, metal, flying balloons, nails and fire, taking inspiration from the likes of Lucio Fontana and his ground-breaking treatment of the canvas. At the same time, movements with similar conceptual and aesthetic ambitions such as Holland's Nul, Italy's Azimuth and Japan's Gutai sprouted around the globe and offered a fertile environment of inspiration and discourse amongst artists.

Having been exposed to Yves Klein's monochromes in the late 1950s, Uecker was soon inspired to use pure, monochromatic white surfaces that enhanced the effects of light and imbued the works with meditative and spiritual undertones. In 1957, in a similar act of dedication to the use of white, Uecker also devoted himself to the use of nails, a medium that is now synonymous with his practice. He began by hammering thousands and thousands of nails into everyday objects such as furniture, musical instruments and TV screens, honing the immense technical skills necessary to render these hypnotic and virtuosic compositions. Symbols of building, rebuilding even, were intensely powerful in Post-War Germany. Equally, as an act of iconoclasm against the tradition of representative and religious art history that had so dominated the Western tradition, by reclaiming the nail from its associations with 'The Passion of Christ', Uecker was making a radical statement regarding the future of art as being divorced from its past.

Uecker's developments and discoveries made in this formative period are noticeable in the confident execution and skilled use of material in Lichtscheibe, which comes from one of his most sought after series. In a tremendous physical effort, the artist hammered hundreds of nails into the circular wooden board, before giving them a uniform white coating. Starting at one point of the composition, the artist placed one nail after another, creating intricate patterns and an enthralling composition that reaches into the world of the spectator. A kinetic work, the disc has been affixed to an engine allowing the disc to rotate, rendering a hypnotic dance of light and shadow. Standing far from the wall, with its proud, protruding nails, the work has a sculptural quality further emphasized by its mobile nature. When viewing the work spin, one feels a certain innate tension between the pull of time passing and the meditative, spellbinding trance of the spiralling nails. The limitlessly shifting composition makes the spectator more than an onlooker but an active participant, simply by observing the forever undulating reliefs from different angles and bearing witness to and being moved by the permanent process of change.

In Lichtscheibe, centrifugal patterns spiral outwards akin to a Fibonacci sunflower, tricking the mind with dizzying swirls of painted metal. The edges of the circular disk are rounded, blurring the transition from artistic ground to the world around it, inviting us to draw comparisons to natural phenomena: the beauty of a field of flowers or the movement of the sun. A master of optical manipulation, Uecker compared the interplay of the nails and light to that of a sundial, which is furthered by the motion of the work. Yet, there is also a psychological undertone to it, creating something beautiful using materials that only years before had been used to seal houses and protect families during the war.

Over the many decades of his artistic production, Uecker has received numerous awards and is collected and admired internationally. He participated in Documenta, Kassel three times (1964, 1968, and 1977) and at the Venice Biennale in 1970. The artist's work is included in some of the most esteemed international institutions including Tate Modern, London, MoMA, New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin amongst many others. In the recent retrospective of the ZERO group in 2014-2015 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York an entire room was dedicated to Uecker's kinetic light works. Originating from one of the artist's most dynamic, creative and coveted periods, the present work demonstrates his truly ground-breaking approach and remains both urgent and vital today.