JENS ULLRICH, FLIEGER
March 11 – April 30, 2011

Jens Ullrich’s preferred medium is collage. He uses images from magazines, newspapers and catalogues and combines them with elements he designs himself. All his works have a clear connection to reality.

The “Flieger” (german for: Flyers) are collages from sports-photographs, found in today’s newspapers, and depictions of sculptures from the period of National Socialism, so-called ‘Staatskunst’ (State Art) of the years 1933 – 1945. The athletes are shown in the spectacular moment when they just have lifted themselves off the ground by their own power. They are flying people. Their living bodies entangle themselves in the collages with the heavy bronze and stone figures to form monuments of weightlessness. In the photographed moment, lasting only a fraction of a second, the whole arsenal of the exaggerated, muscular bodies of fighters, heroes, workers, idealized figures of naked women, victorious athletes and strong mothers changes into to something completely new. This ambivalent metaphor about flying and freedom – quite opposite to the naive dream of complete detachment – reveals the artist’s hope on the positive effect of constructive destruction.

With his new works Jens Ullrich exceeds the usual collage format. His “Flyers” are life size and the individual pieces of paper have been glued directly onto the canvases. The works are incredibly expressive and at the same time of a surprisingly light and poetic beauty – and boldness. As well in content as in form, we can experience and interprete them on several levels: as a political and social statement, as an ironic comment, as an amazing picture.

JENS ULLRICH | GALLERY EXHIBITIONS