Wolfram Ullrich and Jo Schöpfer

The works of Jo Schöpfer (* 1951) move on the border between sculpture and architecture. His bronze sculptures look like steel skeleton models for modern buildings – skyscrapers or apartment blocks that structure and basically constitute the enclosed space.
Jo Schöpfer always moves from the structure through the perspectives of these sculptures to an open form, which to a certain extent demands the movement of the viewer. In this movement, the superficial contrast between organic and geometric forms dissolves. In their place comes an experience in which the object and its effect interpenetrate.
In the encounter, the work of Jo Schöpfer unfolds its full presence – sometimes with a grand gesture, then again very calmly and withdrawn. Some works seek proximity to the viewer, others keep them at a distance. Together they keep the viewer moving – so that he does not set it up too comfortably from any perspective.

Over the years, the painter Wolfram Ullrich (* 1961) has opened up his artistic work more and more towards spatialization on the demarcation line between painting and sculpture. The rational striving for formal rigor is just as important to him as the irrational downside of their effect. Ullrich’s reliefs initially impress with their precise shape and color. They are polyhedra over trapezoidal bases. Its geometric body made of brushed steel is visible at the edges, the face itself is covered with a monochrome skin made of lacquer and acrylic paint: blue, salmon-colored, or earthy rusty brown.
If you gradually move away from what is actually visible, these reliefs involuntarily begin to twist. Depending on the viewer’s position, they work their way into or out of the wall, tilt and become soft, bend over narrow shadow gaps towards the viewer and finally say goodbye to weightlessness. The illusionistic pull that these works exert is strong. But the centrifugal force of concrete art stands firm against it. Thanks to this well-calculated antagonism of forces, Wolfram Ullrich succeeds in staying true to a strong tradition without succumbing to its conventions.