Skulpturenpark Köln

With 100 solo and numerous important group exhibitions such as documenta, the Venice Biennale or Skulptur Projekte Münster, Ulrich Rückriem (b. 1938 in Düsseldorf) counts as one of the most important sculptors in the second half of the 20th century. As far back as the 1960s he was one of the most interesting exponents of Minimalism in Europe. He was a major influence on the development of modern sculpture, in that he turned entirely away from classical subjects and techniques of traditional figurative sculpture to explore the fundamental problems of the genre: size, volume, material and their relationship to the surrounding space.

Ulrich Rückriem can be understood as the sculptor who made the genesis and visual recapitulation of a work component of his sculpture. In this black granite piece, the artist shows all the possible technical methods of production - the splitting, cutting and sanding of the stone - whose volume parts he then fuses together to a block from within whose interior the most elementary geometric form is produced by serial partitioning. His work - represented in the Sculpture Park Cologne by another sculpture out of granite - can be seen as a matrix for conceiving of new creative ways and as a leitmotif for inviting young artists and their innovative artistic conceptions.

Ulrich Rückriem lives and works in London.