PETER SCHWICKERATH

Peter Schwickerath, born in Düsseldorf in 1942, is known for his monumental steel sculptures, which captivate by geometric precision and a deep exploration of space and form. The theme of his works is the relationship between mass and space and the effect of surface as the boundary of the body and its direction in space.

Schwickerath is particularly interested in the variety of possibilities in formal simplicity and rigour. He shows a very obvious thematisation of the sculptural material, which is preferably steel. In Schwickerath’s works, this massive and compact material appears both light and elegant, playful and wilful - the artist often folds, bends or cuts it out of a single piece, seemingly effortlessly. And yet the works retain the familiar character of industrial production.

The artist’s sculptures are characterised by the preservation of sculptural tradition while using the most elementary formal means. His composition is never intuitive, it is precisely comprehensible. Gregor Jansen writes so aptly: “In that Schwickerath’s sculptures have no relationship to things or forms outside themselves, they are to be understood as concrete sculptures and are simply what they represent.”

For some years now, Schwickerath has been detaching his works from pure materiality by optically working with a coloured powder coating, which he uses to emphasise the contour and make the material recede into the background. With its height of 3.30 metres, ‘Stele rot’ (‘Stele red’) in our inner courtyard in front of the gallery is a wonderful example of this technique. In contrast to the monumental sculptures that Schwickerath has created for public spaces, some of which can be seen in the Düsseldorf cityscape, our exhibition presents much smaller formats and wall sculptures.