Sale: 470 / Post War I, June 09. 2018 in Munich Lot 902

 

902
Günther Uecker
Feld (For Ezra Pound), 1999.
Mixed media
Estimate:
€ 140,000 / $ 151,200
Sold:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000

(incl. surcharge)
Feld (For Ezra Pound). 1999.
Mixed media . Nails and black paint on wood.
Verso signed, dated, dedicated and with direction arrow. 40 x 30 x 10.5 cm (15.7 x 11.8 x 4.1 in) . [SM].

PROVENANCE: Private collection Southern Germany.

"And then I came across Majakowsky's 'Poetry is made with the hammer', and I jammed the pen into the paper. That was my idea of Realism. Emotions in my hand, the hand is the tool and the workplace is art. From that point on it was just a small step towards working with hammer and nail." Günther Uecker, in: Die Welt, May 31, 2012.

Contemplative and noisy, reflective and pestering at the same time - these characteristics have been true for the art of the painter and object artist Günther Uecker for more than half a century. The nail as an anonymous industrially-made product expresses a deeply-felt spirituality in Uecker's oeuvre. It is not a means of destruction, instead it guides the observer's eye, transforms the view. Next to serial arrangements of nails on the image carrier, Uecker has also created a large number of apparently unorganized "Field" pictures. By varying the gaps between the nails and an organization in clusters, he creates poetically stirred fields of light and shade. The huge nails enliven the surface in a typical play of light and shade and create fields of powerful motion that leave an impression that changes with the observer's position. Our work is part of a series dedicated to the poet Ezra Pound. In 1945 the poet, who was living in Italy, was arrested because of his close relations to Mussolini and was imprisoned under degrading circumstances in a cage especially made for prisoners on death row. He did not face death penalty as he was legally declared insane. Uecker's creation is a document of the intensive occupation with lyrical, historical, religious and political texts. [CE]



902
Günther Uecker
Feld (For Ezra Pound), 1999.
Mixed media
Estimate:
€ 140,000 / $ 151,200
Sold:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000

(incl. surcharge)