Micha Ullman : “Down” (Installation + Sculpture)

‘Down’ Exhibition
Installation view, 12 pieces
Iron, red sand,
2009

‘Table’ Sculpture
Iron, red sand,
36 x 122 x 76 cm
2009

‘Chair’ Sculpture
Iron, red sand,
24 x 100 x 49 cm
2009

In 1995 Micha Ullman finished his installation Bibliothek (library) in the center of Berlin, since then this piece has developed into a world-famous memorial that commemorates the May 1933 Nazi book burning. Here as well as in his new installation ‘Down’ the sculptor Ullman operates with the moment of void and invisibility and a ‘spatiality that is created within the mind’.

He arranges rusty metal-sculptures on the floor, open forms that have a slant of a 32′ degree angle and are filled with loose sand. Sand and rust become a unity of red pigment. The sculptures represent a tilted table, chairs and glasses thrown on the floor, that are only partially visible over the floor-level.

The artist talks about the emergence of the tip of the iceberg, the catastrophe prior to the destruction is not visible anymore. Ullman is interested in dualisms such as light and shadow, the released and the vanished, the inside and the outside. He brings these opposites in harmony within the chosen material: the interior of the sculpture becomes the outer surface, the three-dimensionality seems flat, rust and sand no longer differentiate in their colour. Corresponding to the large-scale work, there are ten single and one quadripartite drawing, showing chair, table and glass. ‘Painted with sand’, they are endued with their own Gestus and have their own autonomy. [Micha Ullman : Alexander Ochs Gallery : Berlin]

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