Martin & Brigitte Matschinsky-Denninghoff
Botschaft
1986
Brass and tin on Schiefersockel
49 × 35 × 17 cm | 19 1/3 × 13 3/4 × 6 2/3 in
Signed with the initials and dated “86” on the bottom
Edition of Unique
Catalogue Raisonné by Költzsch 1992 no. 535
The artists' studio; Galerie Hennemann, Bonn; Wilfried Hoffmeister, Lüdenscheid (1992); Hoffmeister Collection, Hamburg
- Galerie Ludorff, "Skulptur I", Dusseldorf 2015, p. 76
- Georg W. Költzsch (Hg.), "Matschinsky-Denninghoff, Monographie und Werkverzeichnis der Skulpturen", Köln 1992, no. 535
The metal sculptures by the artist couple Matschinsky-Denninghoff occupy the space around them in almost unlimited and infinitely variable dimensions and formats. The dynamically dissolved, sculptural bodies are always subject to a technical and formal-aesthetic regularity that has been consolidated over the years. From 1955, the year of their wedding, the artist couple developed an independent position that was committed to a vocabulary that was nevertheless sculptural.
After studying in Berlin and Munich, Brigitte Meier-Denninghoff assisted the famous English sculptor Henry Moore from 1948 and in 1949 became a co-founder of the artists' group “ZEN 49”, whose members proclaimed the “zero hour” after the Second World War and dedicated themselves to the spread of non-objectivity in art. Martin Matschinsky, a former soldier and physically and psychologically almost unharmed returnee from Russian captivity, initially worked as an actor and only discovered his enthusiasm for sculpture when he met his future wife in 1952. Her meeting with Antoine Pevsner in Paris, under whose constructivist-influenced approach to art and architecture Brigitte Denninghoff studied from 1949 to 1950, sealed their collaboration and shared artistic orientation.
The basic element of her sculptures is the spatial line, not in its function as a silhouette, but as a constituent element of complex structures.Initially arranged into wall-like surfaces, curved into entire body structures, in whose surface the play of light and shadow is refracted, spatial lines are soon bundled into moving constructions.In the bundling, the line solidifies, evoking flowing striving and at the same time technoid regularity. The abstract brass composition of our sculpture ‘Botschaft’ from 1986 also develops in the interplay of lively movement and the architectural uniformity of a column. The medium format and the limitation to two complexes, which approach a standing motif, lend it an organic character in which one sometimes believes to recognise an anthropomorphic abbreviation.
