Ulrich Rückriem: Skulpturale Grafik – Grafische Skulptur

Across the boundary between graphics and sculpture!

In 2008, Ulrich Rückriem donated a large mural to the Ruhr University Bochum, having previously given his extensive archive of works to the art collections there. The scientific analysis of this donation has now been completed. The publication now appearing is intended to introduce the unknown Ulrich Rückriem, namely the draughtsman. Born in Düsseldorf in 1938 and now living in Cologne and London, the sculptor and retired academy teacher, who taught in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt/Main, is regarded as an outstanding representative of a minimalist and conceptual approach to sculpture. The publication therefore focuses on his works on paper "Gebundener" and "Freier Figurationen" as well as his "Kosmen", which describe a charged tension between monolithic sculpture and weightless drawing. The work's inherent causes for the shift in emphasis from sculpture to drawing will also be clarified, which presupposes an analysis of the relationship between sculpture and functional and autonomous drawing. In this context, the fundamental question of materiality in Rückriem's work is also addressed. For it is above all the sketches, drawings and models in which the genesis of individual sculptures as well as the creation of entire work ensembles becomes visible, which the archive at the Ruhr University Bochum preserves. The book presents the artist's archive by means of numerous illustrations of previously little-known and rarely published drawings and thus provides completely new insights into the work of Ulrich Rückriem. The author of this publication is Dorothee Böhm, who is the academic director of the "Ulrich Rückriem Archive" at the Institute of Art History at the Ruhr University Bochum.