Günther Uecker is one of the most renowned German artists, his unique works between painting and sculpture have earned him a place in art history. Uecker's oeuvre is extremely diverse and of international rank. The former "ZERO" artist and later professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy (1978 to 1994) exhibited several times at the documenta in Kassel, as well as at the Venice Biennale in 1970, the most renowned exhibitions for contemporary art. For his art, Uecker uses nails, anonymous, serially produced, simple industrial products by means of which he create structures and motion on the image carrier. Many his works are inspired by spiritual and philosophical themes, which he translates into his unique visual language.
Uecker is one of the central figures of the Düsseldorf artist group "ZERO". After the end of the Second World War, the zero hour, this group sought new possibilities for artistic expression using non-artistic material, kinetics, light and spatial installations. In the spirit of the "ZERO" group, Uecker reinvented art with his nail pictures, liberating it from the hitherto dominant significance of the painterly flow as an artistic signature. Uecker's work is both a craft and a creative intellectual endeavor. Through the repetitive, monotonous movement of hammering the nails, the activity resembles the meditative turning of a prayer wheel. In his work "Aggressive Reihung (Antibild)" (Aggressive Sequencing (Anti Picture)), he positions the nails on horizontal and vertical lines drawn in pencil, which form a strict grid of lines. Driving nails through the intersections of the lines from the reverse side of the image carrier, he creates a precision masterpiece. The result is a serial sequence moving in the same rhythm, like a monotonous beat with a constancy that emanates calmness. Instead of the nails’ heads their pointed ends become the protagonists of the composition. They are lined up in formation and thus have a particularly defensive character. In 1975, the Folkwang Museum published an edition of "Aggressive Reihung" in a size of 30 x 30 centimeters. In 2005, Günther Uecker's work was honored in a grand retrospective at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. Today, his works can be found in numerous important public and private collections, such as the Folkwang Museum, Essen, the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, as well as the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, in Berlin. [SM]