Organische Struktur, 1962

About the Work

Günther Uecker abandons paint. Instead he treats the primed canvas with hundreds of nails – his primary creative material. Not one of them, however, has been hammered into the picture surface randomly. As if responding to a magnetic force, the metallic object adheres to a strict system and, given the uniform angle of the nails, seems to rotate. The dynamic movement of Uecker’s nail structures extend the picture surface into space and create an ever-changing play of light and shade. Uecker was one of the central figures of the Düsseldorf artists’ group known as ZERO. After the Second World War – the ‘zero hour’ – its members set out in search of new means of artistic expression through the use of non-artistic materials, kinetics, light and room installations.