Galerie Ludorff, "Skulptur 2", Düsseldorf 2025

LINE AND PLANE

A continuous line: sometimes straight, sometimes at right angles, forming a figure that aspires vertically. Norbert Kricke’s Raumplastik XXXVIII (1975/1976) is a delicate construction – a subtle arrangement in stainless steel that almost imperceptibly marks space through its linear guidance, making it perceptible as some-thing present without confining it, instead emphasising its spectra. “Our space has a thousand qualities. They are the ones we give it,” Kricke re­­marked in 1962.3 Kricke’s gesture is conceptual - akin to Bernard Venet’s, who uses a sinuously curved line to allude to the expansion of space. Venet’s steel sculpture Ligne Indéterminée (1994), repeated in various sizes by the artist, embodies the idea of continuous movement, often linked in his works to chance within the contexts of action and interaction. Every context of action generates facets that shape the surrounding space, revealing it in its constant flow through time as something concrete in the present – transcending boundaries. Martin and Brigitte Matschinsky-Denninghoff dedicated their lives to this idea. Their sculpture (64/5) from 1964 was created about ten years into their collaboration. Fine brass rods are bound together with tin, forming a plane in which the blending of materials resembles a draped curtain. The visible and the hidden within the material’s curves alternate and meander. The aluminium sculpture Ohne Titel (2023) by Katharina Grosse, with its wave-like curvature and spray-painted acrylic colour, shimmers in what it reveals and conceals. Conceived as a flat object leaning against the wall, the broadly applied, sometimes streaked paint reflects onto the white wall behind, creating a colourful glow in which the sculptural form continues faintly but physically present.

MOVEMENT AND POSITIONING

Georg Kolbe’s Kleine Amazone is based on a drawing the sculptor created in 1912. This small bronze sculpture, which Kolbe reworked after the First World War, belongs to his early œuvre – and reflects the beginnings of Galerie Ludorff, which began its collecting activities in 1975 with works by Georg Kolbe, Renée Sintenis, and Wilhelm Lehmbruck. The figure of the female nude stands in a stable yet dynamic pose; her right thigh is draped in a softly flowing cloth, her head turned to the left. Kolbe’s Kleine Amazone rests actively in her stance, assertively positioned, balanced in posture, and authentic in presence. She thus stands in close proximity to the Reform Movement of the 19th century and acts as a call for a liberated, modern society. This approach to human and natural form is particularly evident in the sculptures of Renée Sintenis, where a focus on figurative and organic representation is expressed through small-scale animal sculptures. Sintenis’s Galoppierendes Fohlen (1929) occupies a distinct position: through the foal’s elongated forelegs and hind legs bent in mid-leap, human and animal merge into a homogeneous body in motion – suggesting a closeness between different manifestations of the living. A near-static equilibrium is found in Doublement (1969), a small sculpture by Max Bill, cast in brass and chrome-plated. Movement and positioning – such as the relationship between the individual and their environment – are conveyed here, in keeping with the principles of Concrete Art, through a radically reduced geometric form. The sculpture’s highly polished surface functions as a mirror, reflecting the surrounding space and drawing in the gaze of viewers, who follow the – one, two, four – crossing and mutually supporting rods, encountering one another in an attempt to create a balanced social reality.5 A utopia? The monumental sculpture Painted Silhouette (1987) by Allen Jones appears to issue a kind of directive through the black sphere held in the figure’s left hand: to engage with contemporary social developments from a reflective standpoint. The British Pop Art artist Jones interrogates visual associations with media-transmitted imagery and the entanglement of image and object. The female silhouette is cut from a thin steel sheet and painted primarily in yellow, magenta, and cyan – the colours commonly used in the printing of media products. The athletic, sexualised body of the figure is held and presented by a narrow incision in a circular pedestal. The calibration of forces and the fragility of media-transmitted images blend into one another – and nearly forty years after the sculpture’s creation, remain strikingly relevant.