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Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
German artist who 'painted with nails', Guenther Uecker, dead at 95
German sculptor and installation artist Guenther Uecker, best known for his mesmerising artworks using thousands of nails, has died at age 95. His works, created from the 1950s saw him hammer nails into furniture, TV sets, canvases and a tree trunk, creating undulating patterns, the illusion of movement and intricate shadow plays. While he became famous for using a hammer instead of a brush to "paint with nails", Uecker, considered one of Germany's most influential artists, later also used other materials, from sand to stones and ash. Uecker was born on March 13, 1930, in Wendorf in what is now the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. He grew up on Wustrow, a peninsula north of the Baltic Sea port of Wismar, experiencing the horrors of World War II. A few days before the German surrender, the ship "Cap Arcona" sank near his hometown, with 4,500 concentration camp prisoners on board. Uecker helped bury the dead who washed up on shore, a traumatic experience he addressed decades later in his work "New Wustrow Cloths". Fearing the advance of the Russian Red Army, a young Uecker nailed shut the door of his family home from the inside to protect his mother and sisters. Uecker remembered that "panicked, instinctive act" in a 2015 TV documentary with public broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk. "That had a profound impact on me and was perhaps a key experience for my later artistic work." - 'Intrusiveness and aggression' - Even as a child, Uecker was constantly drawing. This displeased his father, a farmer, who thought his son was "a failure and not quite normal", Uecker recalled in a 2010 interview with the Rheinische Post daily. As a young man in East Germany, Uecker in 1949 began an apprenticeship as a painter and advertising designer, then studied fine art. But Uecker, who wanted to study under his artistic idol Otto Pankok, fled East Germany in 1953 and transferred to the University of Dusseldorf. Uecker, who created his first nail paintings in the late 1950s, later said that the nail attracted him for its "intrusiveness, coupled with a strong potential for aggression", something he said he also carried within himself. In 1961, he joined the art group Zero of Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, who sought to counter the devastation of World War II with a spirit of optimism and lightness. Zero aimed to return art to its absolute basics, they wrote in their manifesto: "Zero is the beginning." Uecker's work often addressed contemporary issues. His ash paintings, for example, were a response to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. After xenophobic riots targeted migrants in a suburb of Rostock in 1992, he created a series called "The Tortured Man" which was exhibited in 57 countries. Uecker's works are exhibited in museums and galleries, but he also designed cathedral church windows and the prayer room of Berlin's Reichstag building housing the lower house of parliament. Asked once whether he was bothered by being known simply as the nail artist, he said he wasn't. "Something like that is necessary for identification ... People need a symbol, an emblem." wik/fz/sea/giv
France 24
2 days ago
- General
- France 24
German artist who 'painted with nails', Guenther Uecker, dead at 95
His works, created from the 1950s saw him hammer nails into furniture, TV sets, canvases and a tree trunk, creating undulating patterns, the illusion of movement and intricate shadow plays. While he became famous for using a hammer instead of a brush to "paint with nails", Uecker, considered one of Germany's most influential artists, later also used other materials, from sand to stones and ash. Uecker was born on March 13, 1930, in Wendorf in what is now the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. He grew up on Wustrow, a peninsula north of the Baltic Sea port of Wismar, experiencing the horrors of World War II. A few days before the German surrender, the ship "Cap Arcona" sank near his hometown, with 4,500 concentration camp prisoners on board. Uecker helped bury the dead who washed up on shore, a traumatic experience he addressed decades later in his work "New Wustrow Cloths". Fearing the advance of the Russian Red Army, a young Uecker nailed shut the door of his family home from the inside to protect his mother and sisters. Uecker remembered that "panicked, instinctive act" in a 2015 TV documentary with public broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk. "That had a profound impact on me and was perhaps a key experience for my later artistic work." 'Intrusiveness and aggression' Even as a child, Uecker was constantly drawing. This displeased his father, a farmer, who thought his son was "a failure and not quite normal", Uecker recalled in a 2010 interview with the Rheinische Post daily. As a young man in East Germany, Uecker in 1949 began an apprenticeship as a painter and advertising designer, then studied fine art. But Uecker, who wanted to study under his artistic idol Otto Pankok, fled East Germany in 1953 and transferred to the University of Dusseldorf. Uecker, who created his first nail paintings in the late 1950s, later said that the nail attracted him for its "intrusiveness, coupled with a strong potential for aggression", something he said he also carried within himself. In 1961, he joined the art group Zero of Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, who sought to counter the devastation of World War II with a spirit of optimism and lightness. Zero aimed to return art to its absolute basics, they wrote in their manifesto: "Zero is the beginning." Uecker's work often addressed contemporary issues. His ash paintings, for example, were a response to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. After xenophobic riots targeted migrants in a suburb of Rostock in 1992, he created a series called "The Tortured Man" which was exhibited in 57 countries. Uecker's works are exhibited in museums and galleries, but he also designed cathedral church windows and the prayer room of Berlin's Reichstag building housing the lower house of parliament. Asked once whether he was bothered by being known simply as the nail artist, he said he wasn't. "Something like that is necessary for identification ... People need a symbol, an emblem."
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine country profile
Europe's second largest country, Ukraine is a land of wide, fertile agricultural plains, with large pockets of heavy industry in the east. While Ukraine and Russia share common historical origins, the west of the country has closer ties with its European neighbours, particularly Poland, and nationalist sentiment has been strongest there. Ukraine gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and then veered between seeking closer integration with Western Europe and being drawn into the orbit of Russia, which sees its interests as threatened by a Western-leaning Ukraine. An uprising against pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 ushered in a series of Western-leaning governments. That same year, Russia seized the Crimean peninsula and armed insurgent groups to occupy parts of the east. The Russian army eventually launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Some estimates suggest that up to a million Russian and Ukrainians have been killed or injured in the first two and half years of fighting. Read more country profiles - Profiles by BBC Monitoring Capital: Kyiv Area: 603,550 sq km Population: 33.4 million Language: Ukrainian Life expectancy: 68 years (men) 77 years (women) President: Volodymyr Zelensky Mr Zelensky's initial claim to fame was playing a fictional president in a television comedy programme, and his victorious election campaign echoed his character's anti-establishment stance. His Servant of the People party went on to win early parliamentary elections in July 2019, giving him control of both the executive and the legislature. President Zelensky went on to rally Ukraine's resistance to the Russian invasion in 2022. He declared martial law and a general mobilisation of the armed forces. His leadership during the war has won him widespread international praise, and he has been widely seen as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. National media have adopted a united patriotic agenda following the Russian annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in the east. Ukraine has banned relays of leading Russian TVs; in turn, areas under Russian or separatist control have seen pro-Kyiv outlets silenced. The authorities also block access to some popular Russian websites and social networks. Ukrainians have changed their media consumption since the start of the full-scale war, with social media replacing TV as a top news source for Ukrainians, new TV channels continuing to launch despite the conflict, and the complete loss of popularity of Russian outlets. Read full media profile Some key dates in Ukraine's history: 1918 - Ukraine declares independence after Russian Revolution. 1921 - Soviet rule established as Russian Red Army conquers two-thirds of Ukraine. 1932 - At least seven million peasants perish in man-made famine during Stalin's collectivisation campaign. 1941-44 - Ukraine suffers terrible wartime devastation during Nazis occupation. 1945 - Allied victory in Second World War leads to conclusive Soviet annexation of west Ukrainian lands. 1986 - A reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station explodes, sending a radioactive plume across Europe. 1991 - As the Soviet Union heads towards dissolution, Ukraine declares independence. 2004 - Orange Revolution mass protests force pro-European change of government. 2014 - Maidan Revolution ousts pro-Kremlin government over stalled European Union association deal. Russia then seizes Crimean peninsula and launches insurgency to occupy parts of eastern Ukraine. 2022 - Russia launches a full-scale invasion in February, initially taking large areas of the eastern but fails in a bid to take Kyiv. Ukraine counter attacks, recapturing Kherson in November and pushing Russian forces back across the Dnipro river. 2023 - Fighting largely reaches a stalemate. The Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine is destroyed, leading to widespread flooding and disruption. The dam was under Russian control at the time. 2024 - Fighting in much of eastern Ukraine becomes a war of attrition. Ukraine launches a counter-offensive into Russia's Kursk region. North Korean troops are sent to fight on Russia's side.
