Gu nther Uecker Interview: Poetry Made with a Hammer

We need images to cross the boundary of the unutterable. The moving story of Günther Uecker a legendary German artist, who expresses his artistic belief by means of a hammer and nails, thus reflecting his dark experiences from World War II. The graves were shallow, but it was hard work, and we vomited a lot. In his early teens, during World War II, Uecker who lived on an island in the Baltic Sea was given the grueling task of burying bodies that had washed up on the beach following a bombardment by the British, a traumatic experience that never left him and came to influence him as an artist. It was also during the war that Uecker had his first encounter with hammering nails, having to nail shut the door and the window shutters of his house in order to protect his mother and two sisters against Russian soldiers. Later, when beginning his intrusive practice of adding nails to paintings, Uecker feels that this was a response to the war, as well as a desire to reestablish a closeness to br,