Günther Uecker
The Book of Job
Exhibition Opening
Original prints by Günther Uecker. Screen print and terragraph on acetate. Signed limited edition of 99. Produced in the studio of Har-El in Jaffa, Tel Aviv. Hand printed by Nissim Ben-Nun, Gilad Margol, and Orly Spinzi.
Günther Uecker was born in Mecklenburg in 1930 and began his art education in 1949 in Wismar. He later attended art school in Berlin’s Weissensee and in Düsseldorf, where he studied under Otto Pankok at the Kunstakademie. Between 1955 and 1957 he created structured relief paintings; starting in 1959 his central motif consisted of so-called nail rhythms. As a member of the Zero Group he constructed Kinetic Light Mills, while in 1966 he began typographic experiments, printwork and relief paintings. In the 1980s he worked with ashes, grass, and branches, and created the series The Endangering of Man by Man, a theater set for Bremen and Stuttgart. He later converted his reflective watercolor landscapes and relief painting into prints.
Günther Uecker exhibited at Documenta 3, 4, and 6, and at the German pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 1970. Uecker’s work is included in numerous public institutions such as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Tate Modern, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.
For over thirty years the Jesuit Friedhelm Mennekes has been involved with exhibitions at the crossroads between art and religion. From a historical standpoint, the combination is natural, but Mennekes also introduces contemporary artwork into churches both old and new, a move that has generated much controversy. This reason: unlike past eras, the modern age puts religion and art in separate autonomous spheres. The art world develops new forms; the Church stresses dogmatic clarity. Beyond these tensions between the realms of art and faith, however, lie many opportunities to think about the values they share.