ERNST HERMANNS
WV 308, 2000
WV 309, 2000
Wood, Paint, Stainless Steel
each 1250 x 600 x 750cm LWH

The Foundation DKM owns a large number of works by the German sculptor Ernst Hermanns (1914 – 2000), whose work, after beginnings in the Informel movement (member of the Young West group), has been one of the most important and trend-setting positions in abstract sculpture since the 1960s. Since the artist’s death, the Foundation DKM has also been the seat of the Ernst Hermanns Archive.

Since the 1960s, Hermanns has worked with elementary sculptural forms such as spheres, discs, rods, circles, triangles, columns, etc. The consistent use of evenly polished stainless steel with a smooth, reflective surface characterizes his work. In its structural appearance, typical of the time, it simultaneously appeals to very archaic and timeless layers of experience in the viewer, and Rolf Wedewer characterized “abstract sculpture as a material manifestation or form of spell of forces and tensions, as a representation of invisible, yet powerful energies” in an earlier catalogue essay for Ernst Hermanns[1].

In Hermann’s work there are sculptures in which the individual forms are placed directly on the floor. The viewer can establish a direct physical relationship to these through their anthropomorphic size as they walk around.

But there are also a large number of surface sculptures in which the elements are fixed – on a smaller scale – on an expansive base surface and which (similar to Giacometti’s “squares”) appear like field-like situations.

Hermanns himself says of his surface sculptures: “The base and its individual components: rod, disc, sphere, signify something like the human, like my point of view or place. It is limited and therefore manageable for me, something like a human experience and experience space, and can therefore also be seen in terms of time. On the other hand, this manageable surface is dynamized by the defining elements, by rod, sphere or disc, into a spatial force field; seen in this way, it stretches into infinity. The individual elements and their assignments to one another are open markings that point beyond my limited position into an unlimited space.”

[1] Rolf Wedewer: Nähe und Ferne, Ernst Hermanns zum 75. Geburtstag, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen 1990; cf.: Ernst Hermanns. Werke aus der Sammlung Morsbroich und Dauerleihgaben aus der Sammlung Maas, Leverkusen 1993, Ernst Hermanns zum 85. Geburtstag, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Münster, Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg, Städtisches Museum Leverkusen Schloß Mors­broich, 1999/2000. Stiftung DKM, Linien stiller Schönheit, Duisburg 2008, 258 – 261.