Dr. Isa Bickmann: Colour Tectonics – The Object Paintings of Wulf Winckelmann Translation: Peter Carrier In the beginning was a tool: a small wooden box, which the artist used somewhat like a stamp in order to dab colour onto the canvas. After use the box would be cleaned and any remaining paint smoothed out with a spatula. Over the years, the box evolved into an object which retained the memory of many paintings and whose original beauty, born of a thousand and one layers of paint, fascinated the artist to such an extent that he held it to be of artistic value in itself and decided to display it on the wall for a few days. Early in 2007, Wulf Winckelmann began to build a replica of the object which had emerged by chance, for it was doubtlessly not possible to repeat the lengthy process by which it had taken shape. This time, however, the object consisted of a wooden box with a covering of polystyrene or polyurethane foam which had been sculpted and then coated in epoxy resin. After it had hardened, several layers of paint, pigments, glaze and other materials were applied to the surface, resulting in a sculpture made of a wide variety of materials. The Third Dimension This is how the transition from a flat image to three-dimensional space is made. For although painting is the only art form to represent space by means of perspective, it can hardly serve to turn three-dimensional space into spatial experience. By hanging the object on the wall, the artist enables the spectator to become acquainted with the work from different angles in space. Moreover, as the light changes during the course of the day, the object acquires an additional quality in terms of its reception. The colour of the light and the play of shadows alter the object. A further effect of this work is that the contents of the object may by no means be determined. Whereas Wulf Winckelmann’s early landscape paintings contained representational associations, his later work approached complete abstraction. Although the works in acrylic paint and pigment had clearly left behind the real object and become (even in later photographic works and their computerised modifications) increasingly abstract, the atmosphere of the images evoked by colour and the horizontal lines were reminiscent of landscapes. Winckelmann strove to represent ‘archetypal landscapes’. There were also paintings which refer back to Venice and look like sections of the walls of houses and exterior walls whose paint is peeling off and revealing earlier layers of colour. In this case, the visible motif – whether Venice’s old walls or the horizon in a landscape – is still representational. In the recent colour objects, however, the ‘image’ itself becomes an object hanging on the wall, informing us exclusively about form, colour and surface structure. Presence Wulf Winckelmann is unmistakably part of an art historical tradition. The catchwords ‘presence’ and ‘place’, referring to material presence and location in space, coined by Robert Morris (*1931) and Carl Andre (1935*) in relation to minimal art, can certainly be applied to Winckelmann’s art. The seriality characteristic of minimal art, that is, the repetition of an object which is not necessarily identical to the next object, as in the work of Donald Judd (1928-1994), is also found in Winckelmann’s work. And yet his works are distinct from their forerunners in the 1960s: although Winckelmann thinks in conceptual terms, the artistic moment clearly takes priority over technical skill. Several protagonists of minimal art and its successors today had and today still have their works ‘built’, that is, they pass their concept on to their assistants or to a craftsman. By contrast, Winckelmann allows intuition to play a role in the creative process when he says that he aspires to lend colour a ‘life of its own’. Today, at a time when we are all striving towards reduction and toy with the idea of counteracting the world of colour and powerful visual language by simplifying our lives according to the maxim, ‘Simplify your life’, minimalism is considered to be a luxury. This is precisely what makes the difference between Winckelmann’s work and that of historical minimalism most apparent. While it is true that Winckelmann works with reduced blocks of colour, on closer inspection his works convey a sumptuousness which could rather be referred to as romantic (when referring to the sensory and spiritual moment) or even as baroque (when referring to the power and depth of the colour). Form The form of Winckelmann’s works is reminiscent of those of Gotthard Graubner (1930*), who declared colour to be the object of an image and created works resembling pillows in the form of monochrome images with subtle shades of colour. The formal similarities between these artists’ work arose somewhat unconsciously, for the sumptuousness of Winckelmann’s solid forms contrasts with Graubner’s softness. While Graubner eliminates any signs of heaviness by flattening corners, Winckelmann’s stony and irregularly notched edges lend his objects a physically perceptible heaviness and thereby enhance their sculptural quality. Expression Winckelmann’s models include artists from the zero movement or abstract expressionism, all of whom worked parallel to the minimalists in the 1960s. Most significant in this respect is the fact that his colour objects become accessible in light of his reference to the expressivity of these movements. Paint is applied in layers, each of which allows the previous layer to show through. The traces left by the spatula are never regular, and therefore show that spontaneity is an important aspect of the composition. No groove is the same as another one. The surface structure sometimes consists of scratches running in all directions, and parallel lines are never drawn with a ruler. It sometimes appears as if water-based paint has been applied on top of a water-repellent oleaginous grounding, which creates irregular patches of colour as they might appear in nature. The artist has limited control over this process, in which chance plays a certain role in the creative process. Process Winckelmann’s works are characterised by alternate shiny, mat, and translucent layers of colour. Paint flakes off as it does from an old wall. Bright yellow honeycomb structures allow the lower layer of reddish orange to show through. A layer of white covers the painted surface like a veil, through which reddish and yellowish layers shine as if yellow paint were partially cracking off a wall and revealing earlier layers of paint below. All of Winckelmann’s works, including the landscapes, show that the process by which the painting comes into being should be visible. The trace of the artist’s hand makes it possible to imagine the genesis of the work, or at least the way in which colour is applied. Bold bulges of colour show how thick the layers of paint are. These resemble the technique of ‘grattage’ used by the surrealists, in particular by Max Ernst, to convey the subconscious in pictorial art. By contrast, Winckelmann does not practise écriture automatique, but deliberately creates rhythmic structures. Light and Shade Winckelmann’s reference to the zero movement is particularly interesting if we consider the rhythmic structures characteristic of several of his colour objects as intrinsically pictorial tectonics. In the context of the zero movement, one might think of the Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven, the co-founder of the Group Zero, whose serial relief forms reduce, by means of white paint, the expression of images solely to light. Light also offers a means of mastering the third dimension. Winckelmann’s colour objects create shadows when hanging on the wall. Thus the colour surface appears to jut out further into space. When the spectator stands in front of these objects, they seem to be floating in mid air. When he walks past them, the shadows clearly show their spatial dimension. The optimal size of the colour objects is around fourteen centimetres, which lends the stony form additional volume and weight. Like the original tool, the surface of the objects have been given a slightly convex form, which reinforces the impression that they are heavy. Autonomous Colour What from afar appears to be a plain area of colour is, in fact, on closer inspection, a succession of colours applied in layers. The spectator becomes aware of the process by which the work emerges as the underlying layers of paint become visible. Winckelmann works with a variety of surface structures: sometimes he applies a pattern to the top layer of paint with a tool, sometimes he finishes a work in thin translucent glazes, sometimes the top layer consists in a craquelling glaze which looks like peeling paint. The materiality of colour is at the centre of Winckelmann’s latest series of works. By painting, stamping and dabbing on colours, the artist achieves an impasto effect and structure. This direct and even sensory use of colour presents a haptic experience for the spectator. Wulf Winckelmann’s colour objects are effectively aesthetic reflections on the theme of colour, which, by making its mark on abstract form, constitutes an autonomous artistic statement.