Günther Uecker – Twenty Chapters.
Exhibition and installation with Sieben Sandmühlen April 20, 2005 - May 16, 2005
Neue Nationalgalerie

The 20th chapter of Günther Uecker's large exhibition, which opened three weeks ago in the Martin-Gropius Bau with 19 chapters, is opened and the exhibition concept is thus completed.

The installation “Sand Mills – Time Spirals” in the Neue Nationalgalerie occupies a key position in Günther Uecker’s work – “Sand Mills – Time Spirals” have been present in Uecker’s work from the very beginning. For the illuminated hall of the Mies van der Rohe building, 7 works from all of his creative periods are displayed. In dialogue with the transparent beauty of the architecture, the works made from Brandenburg sand form a unit that can be described as meditative. They illustrate Uecker's preference for Asian landscape structures, which he learned to appreciate during extensive travels to Asia.

For example, the traces in the sand that are continually re-drawn and erased by the sand mills are reminiscent of the patterns in Japanese Zen gardens. Twine that is moved by machine-operated rods creates images of quiet contemplation that lack anything artificial. The eternal transformation of the images in the sand is to be understood as a comparison with the constantly renewing and changing beauty of nature and its phenomena. Hard work in agricultural fields in his early youth and the artist's experiences with it influenced him significantly in the creation of the sand mills and time spirals.