ROBERT STURM KERAMISCHE PLASTIK 1969

ROBERT STURM
KERAMISCHE PLASTIK 1969 – 1993
MARCH 12 – APRIL 16, 2016
Johnen Galerie is pleased to present Robert Sturm Keramische
Plastik 1969 – 1993, the first exhibition of works by the artist
with the gallery. It will include ceramic works, works on paper
and materials from his archive.
The work of Robert Sturm (1935 – 1994) elevated ceramics
to a new level of abstraction. Initially trained as a painter and
a sculptor, beginning around 1967 the artist began to focus
almost exclusively on ceramics. His work emerged at a time
when ceramics was claiming a renewed role in the wake of a
re-engagement with the principles of arts and craft practices
of the Bauhaus. After World War II the unifying curriculum of
the Bauhaus, where drawing, painting, and drafting had been
taught alongside pottery, textile design and photography was
adopted by avant-garde institutions such as Black Mountain
College in North Carolina (famously bringing together figures
Robert Sturm
Plastik, 1972
such as Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, John Cage,
Courtesy of The Estate of Robert Sturm and
Johnen Galerie, Berlin
Merce Cunningham) but also by German art schools. Thus
Photo: © Andrea Rossetti
Robert Sturm beginning in 1956 studied at the Werkakademie
in Kassel, which in 1947 re-opened specifically with this mandate. Ceramics were an integral part
of the curriculum and with Robert Sturm’s teacher Walter Popp the university had one of the most
influential teachers.
Firmly grounded in graphics (for which the artist had gained early successes) and sculptural practice,
Robert Sturm eventually began his focus on ceramics in the mid 1960s. The 1960s marked a wider
emphasis on the practice, both in Europe where artist such as Lucio Fontana or Joan Miró had already
in the 1950s begun to extend their practice and in the US where master sculptors such as Peter
Voulkos and John Mason, energized by avant-garde experimentations and Abstract Expressionist
aesthetics, sought to break down medium-based categories.
Composed from basic geometric shapes, Robert Sturm’s ceramic works from the 1960s and early
1970s draw on the language of constructivist abstraction. Their formal logic is both simple and complex:
the clay planes, for example, seem set in clear relationships, yet, as the spectator moves around the
sculptures, new lines and forms appear to emerge. At the same time, Robert Sturm’s works never feel
assembled, referential or graphic but are perceived as a unit. They have what art historian Ulrich Gertz
termed an “inner monumentality.”
In the early 1980s Robert Sturm increasingly became engaged with what he considered a fraught
political situation and began a series of works addressing these anxieties. His series of masks and
torsos appear to address these. In this context the artist spoke of the role of the fragment for his
practice: “the examination of the fragmentary runs like a guiding thread through all stations [of my
work]. The fragmentary can be principle and idea. The fragment gives the spectator freedom of thought
and feeling. For me the fragment is a symbol for the brokenness of the world in which we live.”
These later comments reinforce the impression of a closely felt identification with his practice. This
breaking down of the boundaries of art and life, a rallying cry of the historical avant-gardes around the
Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism, is deeply felt in Robert Sturm’s work.
Robert Sturm, born 1935 in Bad Elster, studied at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University and the Academy
of Fine Arts both in Frankfurt/Main and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kassel.
Selected solo exhibitions: Robert Sturm 1935-1994, Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart
(1996), Robert Sturm, Keramion, Frechen (1993); Robert Sturm. Plastik. Grafik, Kunststation
Kleinsassen, Hofbieber (1991); Robert Sturm: Keramik und
Skulptur, Landesmuseum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte,
Oldenburg (1984); Robert Sturm – Gefäße, Plastiken, Reliefs,
Museum für moderne Keramik, Deidesheim (1982); Robert
Sturm, Keramikstudio, Wiesbaden (1974); Robert Sturm,
Kunstkammer Köster, Mönchengladbach (1972).
Selected group exhibitions: Farbe und Form, Keramion, Frechen
(1995); Deutsche Keramische Kunst der Gegenwart, Keramion,
Frechen (1991); Zeitgenössische europäische Keramik, Plastik,
Wandbilder, Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart
(1990); Zeitgenössische keramische Plastik, Städtische
Kunsthalle, Mannheim (1989); Europäische Keramik, Keramion,
Frechen (1986); Keramik der Gegenwart, Schloß Herrenhausen,
Hannover (1982); Experimentelle Form, Institut für neue
technische Form, Darmstadt (1977); Deutsche Keramik 1971,
Hetjens-Museum, Dusseldorf (1971); Kunstpreis junger Westen
1963, Kunsthalle, Recklinghausen (1963).
Robert Sturm died 1994 in Fulda.
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Robert Sturm
Photo: Ulrich Philippi

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