Ulrich Behl

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Ulrich Behl

Ulrich Behl (born September 22, 1939 in Arnswalde ) is a German draftsman , graphic artist and object artist . He is one of the representatives of Concrete Art .

Life

After the war ended in 1945, Behl was expelled with his family to Scherenbostel near Hanover. In 1961 he graduated from the Lutherschule in Hanover. From 1961 to 64 he studied at the Pedagogical University in Alfeld (Leine) , primarily with the sculptor Kurt Schwerdtfeger .

Since 1962 he has dealt with serial and structural designs. From 1962 to 1964 he directed the Trialogical Cabaret together with Georg Marx and Christian Schlockwerder. In 1963/64 he worked on the reconstruction of Kurt Schwerdtfeger's reflective color games from the Weimar Bauhaus period and later directed it. In 1964 he lost all of his artistic production due to theft . From 1964 to 1971 he worked in school in Harpstedt near Bremen. Since 1965, hand drawing has been his primary artistic medium. Since 1967 he worked in the field of printmaking (focus on lithography ) and dealt with the phenomenon of light . From 1967 to 1968 he studied at the Werkkunstschule in Hanover with Raimund Girke and Rolf Hartung and completed his studies with the secondary school teacher examination for art education and crafts. From 1968 to 1971 he was again in the school service in Harpstedt near Bremen, also a specialist seminar leader for fine arts. He worked in adult education and headed the local community college . Since 1971/72 he dealt with installations , a. a. the color mix ambience . In 1971 he moved to Kiel . From 1971 to 1975 he studied art history at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and from 1971 to 1979 he worked as a lecturer in art education at the University of Education in Kiel : Reconstruction of the reflective color light plays by Kurt Schwerdtfeger with students; repeated public performance in the Kunsthalle zu Kiel .

Since 1979/80 he has been creating objects, paper-covered wooden structures. Since 1981 he was head of the department for literature, art and design at the Volkshochschule Kiel. Since 1987 he has designed and implemented metallic swimming objects. In 1989 he took part in the 3rd PRO Conference on Constructivism in Rotterdam . In 1993 he became a member of the German Association of Artists . In 1995 he participated in the Biennale of Venice in the special show ARTE LAGUNA part. In 2002 he initiated and founded the Kiel studio community ninety degrees together with Suzana Hlináková, Frank Peter, Dieter Stolte and Susan Walke.

Memberships

Behl works on a voluntary basis in the regional associations of the Federal Association of Visual Artists and the Association of German Art Educators . He is a member of the Schleswig-Holstein Art Association , the group of benefactors of the Kunsthalle zu Kiel and the citizens' campaign to expand the Kunsthalle zu Kiel . He is co-initiator of the Kiel game line .

plant

Since 1965, hand drawing became Behl's preferred artistic medium. Since 1967 he has also dealt with the phenomenon of light in printmaking - mainly in lithography. His studies with Raimund Girke since 1967 at the Werkkunstschule Hannover led him to occupy himself with the color white, also in the successor to the group ZERO and under the influence of the Dutch group Nul with Jan Schoonhoven . However, the lighting effects created with lamps, mirrors and prisms in Otto Piene and Ernst Mack are just as far removed from him as the rigid structures in Schoonhoven and Günther Uecker .

Since 1967 he has been drawing marine and landscape studies with the titles Maritimes , Maritime Processes , Loosening of Clouds , Small Seascape or Drift , from which he finally came to the design of serial structures and modular orders. At the beginning of the seventies, he crossed the border to the non-representational and geometric in various degrees. In drawings and graphics with titles such as Lichtbewegung (1975), Lichtfall (1975) and Lichtspalt (1976) he reproduced spaces of light around cones stacked one behind the other or translucent light behind imaginary cuts in the paper. Behl himself wrote: "I encounter the immense abundance of visual worlds and optical sensory impressions with a selective interest in manifestations of reality ... My work has for years tended towards the serial and conceptual." Accordingly, he is also interested in all types of industrially manufactured serial structures such as grids , Slats, blinds to study the course of the light on them.

Since 1980, his drawings have been designed exclusively geometrically and always in varying series, the titles of which reflect process-like design ( process order , structure , penetration ), variants of firmly defined basic elements ( modular orders ) or musical composition principles ( double chord , crescendo / decrescendo , abbreviations ) . He developed a concept of serial and modular order, which was significantly influenced by image structures that Richard Paul Lohse had researched in the 1940s and 1950s. With the fundamental exclusion of color (which played the main role at Lohse), Behl took on the analysis of vertical structures as the basis for serial systems. The main motif was the intersection of diagonals with horizontal and vertical lines, at which the refractions of light rhythmically repeat themselves in gradients from the white of the paper to the deepest blackness of the graphite applied by pencil or the pigment concentration of red and blue colored pencil. He creates the presence of light (white) or the absence of light (black) through an exact, concentrated and lengthy application of the drawing in an infinite number of line layers against the unevenness of the handmade paper. The process of drawing moves between the extremes of highest concentration and material compression up to the hovering of the pen above the drawing ground. For him, this concentrated work is also a process of understanding the nature of drawing.

When Behl left the world of the representational, maritime processes , light filters and curved braids in 1977 and turned to the light sequences on precise geometric structures, he also ventured into the field of Concrete Art , of which he is one of the most prominent representatives today. Max Bill's Definition of Concrete Art (1944) provides the key to understanding Behl's art: “Concrete art makes the 'abstract thought in itself' visible with purely artistic means and creates new objects for this purpose. The aim of concrete art is to develop objects for intellectual use. ”For Behl, the“ abstract thought in itself ”is the description of light without describing a situation from the world of real objects.

Objects for intellectual use are also the stretched paper objects that Behl has been developing since 1980 and that today make up an extensive part of his oeuvre. With the help of light wooden scaffolding, which he covers with paper based on the model of airplane model construction , he creates modular systems of geometric spaces, slots and tunnels of different depths, protruding flat or prismatic, on one level or one behind the other, mounted on white wooden boards or as a pyramid , asymmetrical spindle or column reminiscent of Brâncuși are free-standing and translucent and in which the light is caught in different strengths depending on the internal structure. They are study or “show objects”, as Behl calls them throughout, on which the course of light in the deep spaces, its presence and absence can be studied in different gradations.

In addition, the artist dealt with the phenomenon of chance when he transferred rows of lottery numbers into geometric systems or played table tennis balls coated with graphite against white paper surfaces. In his swimming objects for Little Kiel in the Schleswig-Holstein state capital (1987) and for the ARTELAGUNA special show at the Venice Biennale (1995), geometric bodies were exposed to movement patterns that are predetermined by nature. In his solo exhibition on the occasion of the awarding of the State Art Show Prize 2008 in Kiel, the artist showed new groups of drawings and "show objects" that demonstrate a constant flow of new design ideas.

Prizes and awards

Solo exhibitions (selection)

(K = catalog, F = leaflet)

  • 1966 Leibniz College at the University of Tübingen
  • 1968 Galerie pro arte, Delmenhorst; Association of Visual Artists, Gallery in the Künstlerhaus, Hanover (K)
  • 1969 Kunstkabinett Henze, Höxter
  • 1970 Galerie de Gestlo, Bremen
  • 1971 Evangelical Academy, Loccum
  • 1972 Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven (together with Herbert Klettke, K)
  • 1975 Works yard Bissendorf / Hanover
  • 1976 Galerie Stekhoven, Westensee / Kiel (together with Heidrun Borgwardt, K)
  • 1978 Museum for Art and Cultural History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck in the Dräger Forum (F)
  • 1979 Michael Neumann Gallery, Kiel (K)
  • 1981 Textile Museum, Neumünster
  • 1987 Kunsthalle zu Kiel (K); First presentation of a 28-part swimming sculpture on the Kleiner Kiel, Kiel
  • 1990 Galerie Stücker / Kulturring, Brunsbüttel
  • 1991 Bernd Schramm Gallery, Kiel
  • 1993 Gallery Kruse, Flensburg; Gallery at the Marlies Fischer-Zöller City Museum, Düsseldorf (K)
  • 1995 Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca, Palazzo Albrizzi , Venice
  • 1996/97 Chamber of Architects and Engineers Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel 1996/97; Stadtgalerie im Elbeforum, Brunsbüttel
  • 1997 German Academy Rome, Villa Massimo (together with Winfried Völlger)
  • 1997/98 Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg
  • 1998 Leviathan Gallery, Bordesholm
  • 1999 Polish Architecture Museum, Wrocław / Breslau; Claudia Boer Gallery, Hanover
  • 2001 Center Culturel Francais, Kiel
  • 2005 Schleswig-Holstein State Library, Kiel; Art Association Elmshorn; Richard Haizmann Museum, Niebüll; Savings Bank Foundation Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel (K)
  • 2008 cubus Kunsthalle, Duisburg; Imago Kunstverein, Wedemark / Hanover
  • 2009 Sennheiser electronic, Wedemark / Hanover; Brunswiker Pavilion, Kiel; Torhausgalerie, Braunschweig (together with Heiko Tappenbeck)
  • 2009/10 Galerie Dieter Fischer in the depot, Dortmund

Works in public collections

Architecture Museum, Wrocław / Breslau, Poland; Bundeskunsthalle , Bonn; Federal Ministry of the Interior, Bonn; Citizens' gallery in Kiel, Hans Henseleit Foundation ; German Academy Rome, Villa Massimo; Herbert Gerisch Foundation, Neumünster; Ministry of Culture of the State of Schleswig-Holstein; Art Forum Ostdeutsche Galerie , Regensburg; Kunsthalle zu Kiel; Art collections of the Veste Coburg ; Mondriaanhuis Amersfoort; Museum for Concrete Art , Ingolstadt; Museum for Art and Cultural History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck; Museum of Contemporary Art, Kaliningrad; Museum Mountain Flensburg ; Pommersches Landesmuseum , Greifswald; Schleswig-Holstein State Library, Kiel; Schleswig-Holstein State Museum Schloss Gottorf , Schleswig; Sparkassenstiftung Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel; State Gallery Stuttgart ; City Gallery Kiel ; City of Neumünster; Municipal Gallery Karlsruhe ; Stichting PRO, Dordrecht / Netherlands; Pomerania Foundation, Kiel; Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum , Duisburg

Works in public space

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  • Memorial of the Catholic Church in Klein Forste near Hildesheim, 1969
  • Swimming object on the Little Kiel, Kiel, 1987
  • Circuits, 18-part work, PreussenElektra, Hanover 1994
  • Theodor-Heuss-Grundschule, Kiel-Hassee, 1995
  • Bovert primary school, Meerbusch, 2003
  • GMSH, office building Mercatorstraße 9, Kiel-Wik

Literature (selection)

Individual catalogs
  • Ulrich Behl , Association of Visual Artists, Künstlerhaus, Hanover 1968
  • Spaces. Art by other means. Ulrich Behl. Herbert Klettke , Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, 1972
  • Hand drawings. Heidrun Borgwardt, Ulrich Behl , Galerie Stekhoven, Westensee / Kiel 1976
  • Ulrich Behl. Drawings, graphics , Michael Neumann Gallery, Art of the XX. Century, Kiel 1979
  • Ulrich Behl. Objects, drawings, graphics . With a catalog raisonné of prints 1967-1987, Kunsthalle zu Kiel and Schleswig-Holsteinischer Kunstverein , Kiel 1987
  • Ulrich Behl. The swimming object , ed. on the occasion of the exhibition Ulrich Behl. Working with and on paper. Objects, hand drawings, graphics, Galerie am Stadtmuseum, Düsseldorf 1993
  • Circuits, by Ulrich Behl. Installation in the administration building of PreussenElektra , Hanover = Art at the workplace, issue 2, edit. by Bärbel Brede, Hannover 1996
  • Ulrich Behl with "Situation ARTELAGUNA, Venice 1995" , at Artelaguna '95 on the occasion of the Venice Biennale, Schleswig-Holstein Chamber of Architects and Engineers, Kiel 1996
  • Ulrich Behl. Structures. Chance and concept , Stadtgalerie im Elbeforum, Brunsbüttel 1996
  • Ulrich Behl. Modular arrangements , edit. by Axel Feuss, with contributions by Ulrich Behl, Axel Feuss, Eugen Gomringer, Jens Christian Jensen, Susanne Timm = writings of the Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg, 18, Regensburg 1997
  • Ulrich Behl = ARS BOREALIS . Edition on contemporary art in the north, 10, Sparkassenstiftung Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel 2005
  • Ulrich Behl. State Art Show Prize Winner 2008 , BBK Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel 2009
  • Ulrich Behl 75. The pictorial. A retrospective of five decades . Exhibition catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Schleswig-Holstein State Library (SHLB) from July 20 to September 22, 2014; Catalog, text and concept: Bärbel Manitz, Ed .: SHLB Kiel 2014, ISBN 978-3-941713-15-4

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Members "B" / Ulrich Behl (accessed on February 29, 2016)

Web links

Commons : Ulrich Behl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Behl, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Arnswalde