Past
Duration 29.06.2012 – 14.09.2012
“I only do what it is necessary to do. There is no reason to use color, to polish, to bend, to weld, if it is not necessary to do so”, wrote American artist Bill Bollinger regarding his creative approach.
Although Bollinger was one of the leading figures of Process art in the 1960s, his work was more or less forgotten after his early death. Only during recent years has his innovative significance for subsequent developments been recognized.
Valentin Ruhry, a half century later, has recognized a kindred spirit in Bollinger and in the sensitivity to the qualities and possibilities of industrial products and materials that he brought into the creative process. Thus Ruhry has integrated three works by Bill Bollinger into his exhibition.
This is Valentin Ruhry’s second solo exhibition at Christine König Galerie. Again he references the concrete space, although at first glance his works seem hermetic and autonomous. Ruhry has successively liberated himself from a technical approach to his art, incrementally cleansing and purifying his conception of sculpture. He is concerned with the poetry of form, as when he divorces metal grating from its functionality, allowing it to become a dynamic wave through sparing, precise deformation. At issue is also the artistic quality of the material itself, which he endeavors to lay bare in the composition of minimal-abstract wall pieces using plaster, latex paint and masking tape, or in the reflexive interaction of a found wooden wall with the light of a fluorescent tube, which is utilized as a sculptural material. (quot. Alois Kölbl, 2011)
The works by Bill Bollinger have kindly been provided by Häusler Contemporary Munich.
