Art Basel Unlimited

Switzerland

June 18 - 21, 2015

Dominique Lévy is pleased to present Sandmühle (Sand Mill) by the influential German artist Günther Uecker at this year’s Unlimited (Booth U22). This work is part of Uecker’s series of Sandmühlen (Sand Mills), also called Zeitspiralen (Time Spirals), which he has been creating since 1969. The ritualistic, circular motion of the mill imitates the ceremonial processes of both work—exemplified by the repetitive labor of the plow that sows and tills the earth, whether pushed by a man or a motor—and play, suggesting the circle-configurations of children’s games or a carousel. In its paradoxical simultaneity of motion and stillness, the sand mill also echoes the Zen garden, an architectural structure close to Uecker’s heart. However, the sculpture’s most profound function is to act as a three-dimensional demonstration of the cosmic passage of time, of constant transformation in uniformity, of the mutual dependence and dissonant harmony between creation and destruction.

One of the early examples of Uecker’s sand mills was included in the landmark exhibition Earth Art, held at the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art at Cornell University in New York in 1969 and shown alongside other important examples of land art by artists such as Hans Haacke, Robert Morris, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Long, and Robert Smithson.

About Günther Uecker

Born in Wendorf, Mecklenburg, in East Germany in 1930, Günther Uecker is one of the most important and influential German artists of our day. Uecker studied painting in Wismar and at the Academy in Berlin-Weissensee from 1949 to 1953, then at Düsseldorf Academy from 1955 to 1957. A highly prolific artist, Uecker has worked in a wide variety of media—drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, land art, performance, set and costume design for the opera, film, books, writing, and poetry. Uecker’s methodology spans a spectrum from the precise and mathematical to the organic and irregular, sometimes integrating kinetic and electrical elements. Along with Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, Uecker formed the core of the ZERO Group, joined by like-minded artists from Europe, Japan, and North and South America—including Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, and Yayoi Kusama—who shared the group’s aspiration to transform and redefine art in the aftermath of World War II. Uecker’s prominence continues to be acknowledged and his life’s work celebrated in the most prestigious institutions worldwide. The K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen Düsseldorf hosted a retrospective from February to May 2015. Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin recently opened the exhibition ZERO: The international art movement of the 50s and 60s, which originated at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2014 and appoints Uecker as a central figure in this pivotal decade in art history during which painting was redefined, movement and light were introduced as artistic media, and space was used as both subject and material. Uecker has participated in hundreds of exhibitions, including Documenta 4, Kassel, Germany (1968), the Venice Biennale (1970), and numerous solo shows, including one at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1983), and a retrospective at the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich (1990). Uecker lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Image: Günther Uecker, Sandmühle (Sand Mill), conceived in 1969, created in 2014. Sand, wood, cord, and electric motor. 7 meters in diameter (275 1/2 inches in diameter). Installation view at K20 Grabbeplatz in Düsseldorf, 2015. © 2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.