nicht ausgestellt
Intro
From 1949/50 on, the category of spatial sculpture occupied a central position in the work of Norbert Kricke. With this genre, the sculptor and later director of the Düsseldorf Academy of the Arts (1972–81) realized a program in which movement and rhythm form a tension-laden unity. The title already announces an important point of reference for his work: the surrounding space within which a sculpture first unfolds its full effect. Kricke’s abstract wire constructions primarily engage with their environments, with welded rods composed of steel wire and piping extending deep into the space, striving in different directions to form dynamic sweeps. The volume of the sculpture is radically reduced, and mass and density appear to be overcome. Kricke replaces the traditional statics of the sculptor’s art with an art of weightlessness, which despite the filigree iron rods appears extremely dynamic. The work also manifests the desire for freedom which can be found throughout the artist’s oeuvre. With his spatial sculptures, Kricke is one of the main representatives of a new current in sculpture committed to abstraction that emerged after World War II.
On loan from the Friends of the Kunsthalle Mannheim e.V. since 1998; donated by Heinrich Vetter, Ilvesheim