Untitled
Ulrich Ruckiem
In Adelaide a sculptor from Cologne was commissioned to produce a work for the Art Gallery of South Australia as part of the Art Gallery’s SA’s Wild, Visionary, Spectral, New German Art. This exhibition highlights German Expressionism as only one of many directions being explored by Contemporary German artists in 1986. In ten days Ruckriem, a post-studio artist completed his sculptural work. Nicknamed the ‘telephone box’, the work highlights the human scale of the work and the comparison of interior and exterior elements. Working with a balance between the raw surfaces of the rock, the markings of its extraction from the earth and sections the artist has polished, and the Untitled work begins to take on characteristics that make this work a monumental feature of the Art Gallery lawns. Sited in the vortex of three poplar trees, the work silently waits, inviting an intimate exploration of its surface.