Ulrich Rückriem’s Anröchter Dolomit Projekt

Matt Page

Ulrich Rückriem, Anröchter Dolomit Projekt, 1970. Pencil and coloured crayon on squared paper, 29.7 × 42 cm. DMC 2050.

A drawing for?
A drawing of?
Before?
After?
An explanation?
An idea?
An instruction?
Precise?
Approximate?
Careful?
Loose?
For the artist?
For us?
For sale?

A seemingly quiet drawing raises many questions. Ulrich Rückriem splits, saws and breaks stone. It is a process that defies determination through drawing—or perhaps one that is itself drawing. How can an idea be drawn for a material that ‘doesn’t want that which is wanted from it’?[1]

This short text first appeared in Artists’ Drawings Issue #1: Drawing Sculpture (2025). Copies of the magazine can be purchased here.

Notes

  1. ‘…the stone doesn’t want that which is wanted from it.’ Ulrich Rückriem quoted in Pier Luigi Tazzi, ‘Romancing the Stone: Ulrich Rückriem,’ Art Forum, September 1990, 146.