Christian Roeckenschuss

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Christian Roeckenschuss around 2005

Christian Roeckenschuss (* 1929 in Dresden ; † 2011 in Berlin ) was a German painter and representative of Concrete Art and Minimalism . He was a member of the artist group Systhema.

life and work

Christian Roeckenschuss studied singing and piano at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1949/50 . After moving to West Berlin for political and ideological reasons, Roeckenschuss continued his studies at the University of Fine Arts (1951–1957). It was based on the abstract avant-garde of the 1910s to 1930s as well as on the clear forms of Bauhaus and De Stijl . Between 1950 and 1958, study trips and the search for his own formal language took him through numerous countries around the world. The tendencies of his art concept were recognizable early on. The first small-format oil pastel designs with clear geometric shapes were created in 1956. The commitment to the square format and mathematically calculated accuracy became clear, and he was based on models of Hard Edge painting.

Influences to develop in the direction of minimalism and concrete art also came from abstract-concrete artists such as Antoine Pevsner and Hans Arp . Roeckenschuss met both of them during a study visit to Paris . This was followed by an exchange with Lucio Fontana , whom he visited in Milan .

From 1957 Christian Roeckenschuss worked as a freelancer in Berlin. In the 1950s he was one of the few artists in the city who worked geometrically abstract. "Away from the personal and limited, towards the universal and the coolness of the technical age." Is Roeckenschuss' artistic credo.

Squares, rectangles and formats designed with compasses and rulers, often in signal colors, characterize many of his pictures. 1958/1959 created the so-called target pictures - circular constructions in which circular shapes are playfully dissolved into segments. In the 1960s, Christian Roeckenschuss experimented with materials from the model making and stationery needs. He worked with grids, stencils on wood, paper and plexiglass . Also in the 1960s, Roeckenschuss dealt with aspects of light refraction and light reflections. By dealing with OP-Art and ZERO , his oeuvre is fundamentally linked to aspects of movement and the illusion of space.

The examination of the spatial and aesthetic effect of color is visible in art-in-building projects in Berlin and Lübeck in the 1980s , but especially in the work on the series of the Séquences Chromatiques, which lasted from 1975 until his death (“ Color stripes ").

In the late phase of his life, Roeckenschuss made works from industrially produced foils. In 2011 he died of a fall in Berlin.

Roeckenschuss achieved international recognition as a result of his numerous foreign exhibitions. Its importance for minimalism and constructive art is continuously highlighted by the exhibitions at the Daimler Art Collection . With the retrospective exhibition “Minimalism Germany 1960” in Haus Huth , he is honored as an important German minimalist of the post-war period .

"System Topic"

In the post-war years Roeckenschuss was a member of the international artist group Systhema , whose artists included George Rickey , Jan Kotík , Johannes Geccelli , Klaus Schoen and Frank Badur .

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

  • 1963: 120 pastel drawings , German Cultural Institute, Brussels
  • 1975: Galleria Method, Bergamo
  • 1976: Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1977: Galleria Vismara, arte contemporanea, Milan
  • 1978: New Berlin Art Association
  • 1979: Center Culturel Allemand, Paris
  • 1981: Pictures, reliefs, small formats , Christel Gallery, Stockholm
  • 1984: réperes , Place des Vosges, Paris
  • 1986: Color sequences, new pictures , Der Spiegel gallery , Cologne
  • 1999: Color sequences , Mies van der Rohe House , Berlin
  • 2015: Back to the Future , Galerie Köppe Contemporary, Berlin
  • 2017: Minimalist and Concrete Poet , Köppe Contemporary, Berlin
  • 2019: From design to work , Köppe Contemporary, Berlin

Participation in exhibitions

  • 1962: peintures, sculptures, petits formats , Galerie Hautefeuille, Paris
  • 1962: New Trends , Galerie Orez, The Hague
  • 1962: Young City sees Young Art , Wolfsburg
  • 1963: ars viva , Leverkusen and Kulturkreis im bdi, Cologne
  • 1963: German painters , Galerie Vendöme, Brussels
  • 1964: 13 concrete works , Kunstverein Ulm
  • 1965: XX. Salon des Realites Nouvelles , Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris
  • 1965: New tendency 3 , Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb
  • 1966: Young Generation , Academy of the Arts , Berlin
  • 1967: L'art vivant , Musee Saint-Paul de Vence
  • 1968: visual-constructive , Kunstverein Berlin
  • 1969: international exposition des sculptures, Antwerp
  • 1970: El salón de corrientes constructivistas , Barcelona
  • 1973: Multiples , Neuer Berliner Kunstverein , Berlin
  • 1976: espositione additiva di artisti internazionali , Galleria Method Bergamo
  • 1977: Systhema Group , Amos Anderson Museum, Helsinki
  • 1977: Berlin now - contemporary art 1977 , Denise Rene Gallery , New York
  • 1977: Dt. Künstlerbund, 25th annual exhibition, Frankfurt am Main
  • 1977: Systhema , Galerie Bossin, Berlin
  • 1978: XXXII. salon des realites nouvelles , Paris
  • 1978: systhema , Galerie Krüll, Krefeld and Galerie Loeb, Bern
  • 1978: Concrete concepts , Galerie Bossin, Berlin
  • 1980: summer exhibition , Redfern Gallery, London
  • 1981: Graphic Design Study Collection, Museum of Modern Art , New York
  • 1983: Feeling and Toughness, Gallery Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm
  • 1986: 30 years of Concrete Art , Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1987: Art in architecture, projects, drafts, models , Staatliche Kunsthalle , Berlin
  • 1988: Berlin - European City of Culture , Berlinische Galerie , Berlin
  • 1989: Acchrochage , Gallery Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm
  • 1990: New acquisitions, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
  • 1990: Expatriated - those we miss , Albertinum, Dresden
  • 1990/1992: Concrete Art, Gomringer Collection , Museum Ulm and Galerie Objekta, Munich
  • 1992: Gomringer Collection , Museum Ingolstadt
  • 1992: Kaleidoscope , Haus am Waldsee , Berlin
  • 2004: Minimalism & After III , Daimler Contemporary , Berlin
  • 2006: One generation - three positions , Forum Konkrete Kunst , Erfurt
  • 2010: Minimalism Germany 1960s , Daimler Contemporary, Berlin
  • 2017: Serial formations. Frankfurt 1967 , Daimler Contemporary, Berlin
  • 2017: Contrary Positions in Dialogue , Gallery Object40, Berlin
  • 2019: Light in / as an image , Daimler Art Collection, Stuttgart

Collections / museums

Publications / Catalogs

  • Visual, constructive: Henryk Berlewi, Erich Buchholz, Bernd Damke, Manfred Gräf, Wolf Kahlen, Wolfgang Ludwig, Christian Roeckenschuss, Göta Tellesch. German Ges. Für Bildende Kunst, Berlin 1968.
  • Christian Roeckenschuss: Structures, reliefs, engrams, 1965–1972. Spiegel Gallery, Cologne 1973.
  • Christian Roeckenschuss. Galleria Method, Eurgrafika, Bergamo 1975.
  • Christian Roeckenschuss: Vismara arte contemporanea Milano. , Galleria Vismara arte, Milan 1977.
  • Christian Roeckenschuss: Pictures, reliefs, small formats 1975–1978. Catalog of the exhibition Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin 1978.
  • Christian Roeckenschuss: tableaux, reliefs, petit formats 1975 - 1978. Center Culturel Allemand, Paris 1979.
  • Christian Roeckenschuss: pitture, rilievi, miniature 1975 - 1978. Vismara arte contemporanea Milano, Milan 1980.
  • Christian Roeckenschuss - color sequences, paintings, reliefs, small works 1975-1978. Goethe Institute, London 1980.
  • Gisela von Bruchhausen : Christian Roeckenschuss. Galerie Heinz Teufel, Mahlberg 1994, ISBN 978-3-92714111-7 .
  • Renate Wiehager: Minimalism and After III. New acquisitions. DaimlerChrysler Collection, Berlin 2004.
  • Renate Wiehager: Minimalism Germany 1960s. Daimler Art Collection, Berlin 2010.
  • Renate Wiehager : Minimalism and After. Tradition and tendencies of minimalist art from 1950 to today (Daimler Art Collection). Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-77572386-2 .
  • Christian Roeckenschuss: Minimalism and color field painting - works on paper and paintings 1956–1962. Galerie Köppe Contemporary, Berlin 2016

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Renate Wiehager: Minimalism Germany 1960 . Ed .: Daimler Contemporary. Berlin 2010, p. 80 .
  2. ^ Interview with the magazine Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung , issue 9/1961.
  3. ↑ “If one tries to get closer to the abstract compositions and color gradients, one of the keys to musicality can lie in thinking and feeling sounds, harmonies and sequences. In addition to poetry, it is above all music that is important for Roeckenschuss and is reflected in his art in the plane that is beneath the flat surface of his paintings. "Renate Wiehager in: Minimalism Germany 1960. Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, 2010, p. 80.
  4. ^ New Tendency 3, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
  5. ↑ List of Artists of the Forum Concrete Art Erfurt. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
  6. ^ Minimalism Germany 1960s. Retrieved February 8, 2017 .
  7. ↑ exhibition website
  8. ↑ Light in / as an image - Daimler Art Collection. Retrieved October 10, 2019 .
  9. ^ Christian Roeckenschuss in the collection of the Berlinische Galerie. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
  10. ^ MoMA, Museum of Modern Art: Department of Painting and Sculpture: Artists Records
  11. ↑ Daimler Art Collection
  12. ^ Joconde, Portail des collections des musées de France
  13. ↑ Collection of New Berlin Art /
  14. ^ Collection of the Satoru Sate Art Museum. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Christian Roeckenschuss - catalog as PDF. Retrieved February 9, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Roeckenschuss, Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Skirt shot, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German post-war modernist artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH 2011
Place of death Berlin