'Spirale', relief printing on handmade paper, 69,5 cm x 49,5 cm sheet dimension, signed, dated 72, numbered e/a, titled, inscribed in pencil on verso and priced 1200 DM, partly creased, slightly wavy.
Günther Uecker was born in 1930 and is considered one of the most important German artists of our time. He studied at the art academies in Düsseldorf and Berlin. Already in the late 1950s, Uecker found a form of design in nails and made them one of his expressive compositional elements. He assembles them in both dynamic and strictly symmetrical arrangements to form a moving mass, formations or in single shapes. On slabs, wooden boards, tree stumps they were nailed and sometimes whitewashed, allowing him to work out space and movement. In 1961 he joined the ZERO group and worked with Heinz Mack and Otto Piene on light art and kinetic works, as well as on installations in the 1980s. Formations of nails are formative for the artist's embossed prints. Here, curves, rotations and geometric shapes are embossed into the white paper sheet via the body or head of the nail. Just enough pressure is applied so that the paper is brought into a certain shape over time. In 1972 Günther Uecker created the sheet, which is formed by nails laid flat against each other. The heights and depths of the nail shapes and the way they are laid out create an almost swirl-like depth on the coarse handmade paper.
