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Lot Essay
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Executed in 1966, a-x Zero Garden is a single work from a group of twenty-four unique floor pieces, originally conceived as the a-x Zero Garden installation exhibited at the Howards Wise Gallery, New York in 1966.
It is a lyrical work that is at once static, the artist encouraging the viewer to walk around and experience the piece from an aerial height. Each of the nails is fixed into the board with physical force and exertion, yet together they appear dynamic with their ambulatory pattern creating an effect that forever refuses to abate. From every angle the viewer discovers a new mix of patterns, motions and shadows.
As the artist once elaborated, 'when I use nails my aim is to establish a structured pattern of relationships in order to set vibrations in motion that disturb and irritate their geometric order. What is important to me is variability, which is capable of revealing the beauty of movement to us' (G. Uecker quoted in D. Honisch et al. (eds.), Günther Uecker: Twenty Chapters, Berlin 2006, p. 34). In a-x Zero Garden, the work is configured in a circular pattern, the nails radiating outwards from a central epicenter. Blanketed in an even coat of kaolin and white paint, it represents Uecker's own topographical articulation of the monochrome. For the artist, this monolithic absence of colour opened up a wealth of mystical possibilities. In his talk, 'White', held in 1965, Uecker defined the white space of his work as a 'space of spiritual existence', linked to the concept of the 'void' so celebrated by major post-War European artists including Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana, representing a new world 'of silence beyond all screams' (G. Uecker quoted in D. Honisch, Uecker, New York 1983, p. 26).
Executed in 1966, a-x Zero Garden is a single work from a group of twenty-four unique floor pieces, originally conceived as the a-x Zero Garden installation exhibited at the Howards Wise Gallery, New York in 1966.
It is a lyrical work that is at once static, the artist encouraging the viewer to walk around and experience the piece from an aerial height. Each of the nails is fixed into the board with physical force and exertion, yet together they appear dynamic with their ambulatory pattern creating an effect that forever refuses to abate. From every angle the viewer discovers a new mix of patterns, motions and shadows.
As the artist once elaborated, 'when I use nails my aim is to establish a structured pattern of relationships in order to set vibrations in motion that disturb and irritate their geometric order. What is important to me is variability, which is capable of revealing the beauty of movement to us' (G. Uecker quoted in D. Honisch et al. (eds.), Günther Uecker: Twenty Chapters, Berlin 2006, p. 34). In a-x Zero Garden, the work is configured in a circular pattern, the nails radiating outwards from a central epicenter. Blanketed in an even coat of kaolin and white paint, it represents Uecker's own topographical articulation of the monochrome. For the artist, this monolithic absence of colour opened up a wealth of mystical possibilities. In his talk, 'White', held in 1965, Uecker defined the white space of his work as a 'space of spiritual existence', linked to the concept of the 'void' so celebrated by major post-War European artists including Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana, representing a new world 'of silence beyond all screams' (G. Uecker quoted in D. Honisch, Uecker, New York 1983, p. 26).