8 October 2023 – 10 March 2024
“I want to capture movement. I seek to give form to the entity of space and time.” (Norbert Kricke, 1954)
The work of the German sculptor Norbert Kricke is closely linked to the collection at the Franz Marc Museum, to whose creation the gallery owners Etta and Otto Stangl made a decisive contribution. Norbert Kricke belonged to the generation of German post-war artists – representatives of abstract art who were given a forum at the Galerie Stangl in Munich where they founded the group ZEN 49 in 1949. Norbert Kricke came into contact with artists in this circle in 1952 and was acquainted with Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Fritz Winter, K.R.H. Sonderborg, Emil Schumacher, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Willi Baumeister and Rupprecht Geiger, among others.
Accompanied by an exhibition of sculptures and drawings by the artist, the Raumplastik (spatial sculpture) Große F.II, 1980 (956 x 493 x 356 cm) by Norbert Kricke (1922–84) is to be installed in the park at the Franz Marc Museum in autumn 2023.
The steel sculpture, more than nine metres high, marks an imaginary space on the ground and in the air through the expansive lines it traces that change direction at right angles. It makes space palpable and, as the eye follows the sculptural lines, allows time to pass and be perceived.
The exhibition shows Kricke’s sculptures in dialogue with works of post-war abstraction, as well as selected works by Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. In this way the continuity and innovation in Norbert Kricke’s work is made visible within the context of the collection at the Franz Marc Museum.
fig.: Nobert Kricke im Atelier in der Sittharder Straße, 1954/55, Archiv Nobert Kricke