UECKER

34cm x 30cm x 2.5cm, pp. 268, generously illustrated throughout in black and white. 

In his probing analysis, aided by excellent photographs, Honisch, director of the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, demystifies the provocative nail assemblages of his longtime friend, German avant-garde artist Gunther Uecker. He traces the progression from the early brooding, textural works, viscerally nailed objects and calmer light and kinetic sculptures to conceptual actions, set designs and recent, more conventional pictorial compositions. Honisch suggests that a utopian impulse, a desire to touch the viewer emotionally, distinguishes Uecker from the formalist optic art of the Zero group with which he is commonly linked. An existential "working" of a picture and "overallness" evoke abstract expressionism, yet Uecker's muscularity, the author reasons, is more sensual than Jackson Pollock's: the nail, Uecker's public's "cult(ural) idol" is not only a "texturing element," a source of dimension and visual motif, but a unique homage to "rustic ritual," defying the desensitized facade of Pop and the corporate efficiency of the 1960s.

Shelf-wear on white bookcloth marking lower edge of boards. Otherwise, as new.