Gunther Uecker

Günther Uecker (b. 1930) 
Diagonale Struktur 
signed, inscribed, titled and dated 'Diagonale Struktur Uecker 75 Serie 1-10 No. 8 parallelstrukturen 1965-1975' (on the reverse)
nails and graphite on linen laid down on wood 
15 3/8 x 15 3/8 x 3 1/8in. (40 x 40 x 8.5cm.) 

Executed in 1975

Nails on painted wood. 
200 × 150 x 16 cm (78 3/5 x 59 x 6 2/5 in). 
Signed, titled and dated ‘Günther Uecker Mutation 2006’ on the reverse. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

German sculptor and stage designer. He studied painting at the Kunstakademie in Berlin-Weissensse (1949–53), working first in the style of Socialist Realism. During his period at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf he undertook self-imposed repetitive exercises such as archery, and he modelled his first relief-form paintings by hand. In 1957 he made his first relief structures with nails leading to works such as White Picture (nails on canvas on wood, 1959; Krefeld, Kaiser-Wilhelm Mus.). He also incorporated corks (e.g. Cork Picture Light Medium, 1960; Düsseldorf, Kstmus.) and cardboard tubes set into the surface of the painting. The nailed picture became the antithesis of the painted picture; it allowed Uecker to explore the articulation of light through the shadows created by the nails, the unchanging ritual of hammering and the violation of taboo surfaces. In 1958 he began to work on circular nail formations, leading in 1961 to his rotating nailed illuminated discs.

Within the Zero group, which he joined in 1961 after participating in the exhibition Das rote Bild in Otto Piene’s studio (1958), Uecker developed fantastic projects to jolt and stimulate the imagination of an ossified society, such as painting a street white as part of the Zero demonstration in 1961 (see Honisch and Haedecke, p. 69). From 1963 he nailed items of furniture such as chairs, pianos and television sets, for example TV on Table (artist’s col., see Honisch and Haedecke, p. 194). Rotation continued, for example in the nailed fabric sculptures that inflate through centrifugal force, or in the Sand Mills. After 1967, influenced by Land art, Body art and cConceptual art, Uecker’s work slowly moved towards a critical analysis of prevalent structures, exemplified by Chichicastenango (1980; Krefeld, Pax Christi Church), a nailed-up boat symbolic of the martyrdom of South American Indians by the Catholic missions. The Black Mesa cycle of 1984 (artist’s col.; Kiel, Christian Alberts-U., Ksthalle), exhibited in Mönchengladbach at the Städtisches Museum Abteiburg, takes as its theme the threatening of a table mountain in South Dakota holy to the Indians. From 1974 Uecker made several stage sets for opera productions including Fidelio (Bremen), Parsifal (1976; Stuttgart) andLohengrin (1979; Bayreuth Festival).

Post Secret

Post secret was was created by Frank warren. Frank warren is a small business owner who started PostSecret as a community art project. Since October 2004 Warren has recieved thousands of anonymous postcards, Which have been turned into books, featured in galleries and has earned  him several awards. He has a travling art exhibit and was fetured in the popular music video for all american rejects "dirty little secret, . Post secret has also been one of the main contributers in raising money for  the 1 800 suicide hotline created by Reese Butler.  Warren states in one of his books " most secrets are sent anonymously, but the secrets that arrive from young people ushally stand out; their passions run deeper, their loneliness feels mire desolate, their joy is expansive. Their postcards reveal a hidden landscape and sound as though they come from brave explorers finding their way through a wilderness.

http://www.postsecret.com/
http://postsecretcommunity.com/
http://youtu.be/gPDcwjJ8pLg














      

Ibram Lassaw

Ibram Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1913 to Russian-Jewish parents.his family settled in Brooklyn, New York in 1921.Lassaw was very interested in art from a young age .
Lassaw had his first formal training in 1927 with classes at the Brooklyn Children's Museum, which later became the Clay Club (now the Sculpture Center) taught by Dorothy Denslow. At the Clay Club until 1932, Lassaw learned modeling and casting, skills that he refined during his year at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design (1930-1931)


Ibram Lassaw, one of America's first abstract sculptors, was best known for his open-space welded sculptures of bronze, silver, copper and steel. Drawing from Surrealism, Constructivism and Cubism, Lassaw pioneered an innovative welding technique that allowed him to create dynamic, intricate and expressive works in three-dimensions. As a result, he was a key force in shaping New York School sculpture. 


Lassaw's innovative welding techniques, manipulation of diverse materials and fascination with creating space through sculptural forms distinguished his work from that of his contemporaries and predecessors, while at the same time connected him to the aims and concepts of Abstract Expressionism. He was a crucial part of the New York School, both artistically and socially, and instrumental in garnering attention for sculptural Abstract Expressionist work. 
Loom III

Banquet, 1961

bronze 32 x 38 x 25 bronze 32 x 38 x 25 in.

Dubuffet

French avant-garde painter, born in Le Havre (1901-1985). Dubuffet took over his father's wine business in 1925, and withdrew from the art world. He stayed in the wine business until 1942, when he returned to painting, having developed a distinctive style of simple, primitive images in a heavily encrusted canvas. This style helped Dubuffet gain a worldwide reputation. Fascinated by the art of children and the insane, for which he coined the term art brut ("raw art"), he emulated its crude, violent energy in his own work. Critics soon applied the term art brut to Dubuffet's paintings, rather than to their stylistic source as he had intended. Many of Dubuffet's works are assemblages (combining found objects and other elements into a three-dimensional integrated whole), as for example Door with Couch-Grass (1957, Guggenheim Museum, New York City), which is composed chiefly of fragments of paintings, grass, and pebbles. During the early 1960s, Dubuffet produced a series of paintings that resemble jigsaw puzzles, such as Nunc Stans (1965, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City), in which tiny, obscure, closely spaced figures and faces dominate. His later work consists of large painted polyester resin sculptures. In all of his work the violence is tempered with elements of vitality and broad humor.

Artist: Jean Dubuffet

Venue: Pace Wildenstein, New York

Exhibition Title: Monumental Sculpture from the Hourloupe Cycle

Date: October 10 – November 8, 2008

Originally Posted: November 8th, 2008