Ulrich Rückriem (born 30 September 1938) is a German

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

notable for his monumental stone sculptures. He lives and works in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. His abstract works of art are often assigned to the style of

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

and process art.

Life and work

Born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...

, Rückriem apprenticed as a stonecutter in

Düren Düren (; ripuarian: Düre) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, between Aachen and Cologne on the river Rur. History Roman era The area of Düren was part of Gallia Belgica, more specifically the territory of the Eburones, a pe ...

, then worked as a journeyman at the Dombauhütte workshops of Cologne Cathedral. Later, due to his tight association with Gallery Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, he came into contact with artists and colleagues like

Carl Andre Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures and for the suspected murder of contemporary and wife, Ana Mendieta. His sculptures range from large public artw ...

, Richard Long,

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pre ...

, Royden Rabinowitch. From 1963 on, he worked as a free-lance artist. For a few years he shared a studio with

Blinky Palermo Blinky Palermo (2 June 1943 – 18 February 1977) was a German abstract painter. Early life and education Palermo was born Peter Schwarze in Leipzig, Germany, in 1943, and adopted as an infant, with his twin brother, Michael, by foster pa ...

, before he started his academic career, at

Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg The ''Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK Hamburg)'' is the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg. It dates to 1767, when it was called the ''Hamburger Gewerbeschule''; later it became known as ''Landeskunstschule Hamburg''. The main build ...

(starting from 1974), from 1984 on at

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelov� ...

, and finally at

Städelschule The Städelschule (), Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 students of visual a ...

, In the 1960s and 1070s, Rückriem worked in the quarry of Dolomite at Anldorf, museum

Städel The Städel, officially the ''Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie'', is an art museum in Frankfurt, with one of the most important collections in Germany. The Städel Museum owns 3,100 paintings, 660 sculptures, more than 4,600 ...

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

and

Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its ...

Berlin followed. Rückriem was invited to participate at the

documenta ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...

i. Many of the works of art of Rückriem are accessible to the public as

public art Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...

, mostly in Germany, but also in Spain, France, England, Ireland and others. A particularly impressive one of these is ''Siglo XX'' (1995), an installation in the open fields close to the locality of

Abiego Abiego is a municipality in the province of Huesca, in the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. In 2018, it had a population of 237 Approaching Abiego along the road from Bierge, there is an interesting collection of in-situ fossil footprints d ...

(Spain). It consists of 20 steles of granite from

O Porriño O Porriño (historically known in English as ) is a municipality in Galicia, Spain in the province of Pontevedra. An industrial town, in the Vigo metropolitan area, it is an important economic dependency. One of its main industries is granite p ...

, arranged in a manner analogous to the

eight queens puzzle The eight queens puzzle is the problem of placing eight chess queens on an 8×8 chessboard so that no two queens threaten each other; thus, a solution requires that no two queens share the same row, column, or diagonal. There are 92 solutions. ...

.ULRICH RÜCKRIEM: Siglo XX, 1995
Centro de Arte y Naturaleza Fundación Beulas. Retrieved on 16 August 2013. A permanent installation of about 100 sculptures by Rückriem is at ''Sculpture Halls Ulrich Rückriem'' in Sinsteden, near Cologne. The halls and presentation were devised by the artist himself.

Gallery

File:Heine1.JPG, Heine-Denkmal (1982).

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

File:Rückriem Moltkeplatz Essen.JPG, Dolomit (1983).

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and ...

File:Ulrich Rückriem Granit gespalten 1985.jpg, Granit (Normandie) (1985).

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

File:8 Limestones, Dublin, May 2011 (02).JPG, ''Limestone'' (1988).

Irish Museum of Modern Art The Irish Museum of Modern Art ( ga, Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann) also known as IMMA, is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of Modern art, modern and contemporary art. Located in Kilmainham, Dublin, t ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

File:RueckriemCastellZollverein.jpg, ''Castell'' (1991). Mining waste tip Zollverein at

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex (German Zeche Zollverein) is a large former industrial site in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The first coal mine on the premises was founded in 1847, and mining activities took plac ...

File:Ulrich Rueckriem Finnischer Granit gespalten 1992-93 Goethe-Institut Muenchen-2.jpg, ''Finnischer Granit gespalten'' (1992/93).

Goethe-Institut The Goethe-Institut (, GI, en, Goethe Institute) is a non-profit German cultural association operational worldwide with 159 institutes, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange an ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

File:Standing stones, Outwood.jpg, ''7 Steles'' (1999).

Irwell Sculpture Trail The Irwell Sculpture Trail is the largest public art scheme in England, commissioning regional, national and international artists. The Trail includes 28 art pieces and follows a well established footpath stretching from Salford Quays through ...

, England File:Bilbao-Rueckriem-11 5099.JPG, ''Untitled'' (2003). Muelle de Evaristo Ghurruca,

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

References

Bibliography

* ''Ulrich Rückriem: Arbeiten'', Editor: Heinrich Erhardt, Oktagon, 1994. (in German) * Jürgen Hohmeyer: ''Ulrich Rückriem'', Verlag Silke Schreiber, 1988. (in German)

External links

Ulrich Rückriem – artist biography
(Tate Gallery)
Sculpture Halls Ulrich Rückriem
Sinsteden (in German)

– works in public spaces (in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruckriem, Ulrich 1938 births Living people 20th-century German sculptors 20th-century German male artists German male sculptors 21st-century German sculptors 21st-century German male artists Minimalist artists German contemporary artists

Life and work

Gallery

See also

References

Bibliography

External links