Page 34 - Studio International - October 1970

screen patterns in silver; from 1957 onwards
harmony than either Mack or Piene. He has
he turned to tightly corrugated aluminium- in fact used kinetic resources only in certain
foil constructions with slits and creases which clearly defined cases; the first priority for
slice light into positive and negative strips. him has been tranquillity, the whiteness of
These relief-like objects are placed behind a his surfaces studded with nails. These struc-
ribbed pane of glass and set in motion by an tures, strictly regular at first, perceptibly in-
electric motor; the first Light Rotor, also creased in intensity until they became streams
known as Light Dynamo, was created in 1960. and swirls of closely or sparsely set uprights
Over the years the shimmering, sea-like through which the daylight filtered as it does
effect was intensified through the precise through desert oases or snow-covered forests.
arrangement of the wave-forms in the glass The spectator can speed up this percolation
and the dot, line and slat texture of the slowly of light by his own movements. 'Gunther
revolving aluminium disc behind. The gigan- Uecker is setting out', wrote the group's
tic Light Relief over the Sea has remained no spokesman, Piene, in the early years, 'to
more than a dream; and the Sahara Project clothe the work in a durable skin of luminous
has been carried out only in the shape of a hardness and armoured sensibility.' Uecker
number of non-kinetic aluminium pillars repeatedly stressed the importance of light:
which catch the light of the desert sun. But he `When you see my works you will see that
publicized his projects right from their in- they acquire their reality from light.' In
ception, however far they outstripped his 1959, in order to guide the eye more forcibly
own financial resources, and often the to this 'true' reality, he exposed one of his
available technical resources as well. The nail-studded surfaces to a moving light-source.
1958 project in which he envisaged gigantic Since 1960 he has sometimes rotated nail-
light towers and water towers in the open air studded discs under indirect lighting and
came to partial fruition in 1966 in a domesti- called the result Light Drums. In 1960, he
cated version as the Light Forest: tall Plexiglas showed a film of moving lamps shot with a
columns in which rotors, lenses or columns of stationary camera.
discs revolve, flashing or flickering with light. Uecker, who regards the artist as no longer a
The Light Carousel of 1964, an environment creator of subjective states of mind but as an
composed of densely hung, perforated alu- `inventor of means of communication', has
minium streamers which caused revolving again and again made use of the nail as an
lights to flash in time with the motion of the almost inexhaustible source of constructional,
person passing through, has unfortunately concrete or associative communication. In
been destroyed. For Expo '67 in Montreal 1965 he made bags bristling with nails,
he created a Crown of closely packed metal which revolved at an increasingly rapid rate;
tabs in seventy colours which revolved on a above all, the over-life-size Homunculi, in their
motor-driven turn-table dotted with electric mechanical trance, dangerously hurling nails,
lamps. Pursuing the anti-museum policy of contained an unearthly sense of panic.
Zero, he has progressively turned away from For the 'Licht Kunst Licht' show, he com-
the single art object to architectural creations bined the form of the nail reliefs with a kinetic
within landscape settings. light effect in one large environmental work:
The Zero idea of making light itself the main in a thicket of iron tubes, neon-lit slits flicker,
preoccupation has probably been most seri- `making music', like fitful will-o'-the-wisps in
ously formulated by Gunther Uecker (born an infinite, desolate tundra. In a 1965 work
1930). He is more precise, more concrete than the drum of a washing-machine emits beams
his fellows, and consequently more of a of light while nails in its entrails cause jolts
dialectician. His dialectics have also kept him and frightening outbursts of noise. Since the
free from the perils of decorativeness and mere mid-1960s Uecker has tried his hand with
other media, such as a Floating Cloth which in
6 repose is indistinguishable from a bedside
Gunther Uecker
Great Dance-Homunculus 1965 lamp with a slack lampshade. In the Sandmill
Sailcloth, nails, wood, electric motor of 1966, a device like a pair of compasses
Height 200 cm.
causes a toothed piece of iron to revolve on its
7
Gunther Uecker axis once every hour; gradually, over a period
Light Plantation 1966 of days, this combs the sand into ridges of
Environment, metal tubes and neon light shining
through slits, 3 x 3 x 3 m. (at Licht Kunst Licht; coarser and finer particles. This strangely
larger version at Documenta IV, Kassel 1968) meditative piece foreshadows an idiosyn-
8 cratic variant on the theme of Land Art
Hans Haacke
Blue Sail 1966 (1969), consisting of two heaps of sand which
Chiffon, hanging ventilator, thread, lead weights gradually change places through the action
240 x 240 cm.
of an unseen (but not unheard) suction device;
nearby stands a bowl of water whose surface
is disturbed by drops of water falling, at al-
most unendurably long intervals, from a
tank on the ceiling; then, at a moment when
the ripples on the surface had completely
disappeared, the drops began falling faster.