Ludwig Gebhard

A surface space brought into consciousness through modern art

On the Etcher, Painter and Sculptor Ludwig Gebhard's Art

Both Gebhard's early work from the 70's and later work from the 80's do not exclude organic form. On the contrary, this is where Gebhard arrives at New Figurative Art as Antes had understood it. In Gebhard's figures, the geometric forms are virulent, the heart and brain are replaced by numbers or traffic signs. In his oil paintings, abstraction advanced to the point where constructivist elements predominated over organic forms, completely suppressing the cyclops and Kopffüsslers ('head-footers') for a long period. The Cubist-Futurist movement remained the potential point of departure. Gebhard avoided narration, illustrative art, and also 'any naturalism of surface'. He sought clear, decorative form instead. Gebhard had a habit of using the surface, brought into consciousness through modern art, in a precisely though-out pattern, in sculpture as well as in painting. Chrome-plated steel with its finish, light-reflecting surfaces and marble pedestals were part of the generic materials of a sculptor of the 80's. He did not scorn small format. His knowledge of the laws of volume and the strength of the line in his drawings allowed elements of industrial design, esthetic balance and purist sensitivity to enter the surface space - often chrome-plated, whether on iron or steel, but also wrought iron as relief, in which profile and frontal view appear simultaneous. His bronzes and reliefs demonstrate Constructivist and Cubist elements. The playfulness of Surrealism allows form to rely on figurative lines. Mask-like qualities as Picasso saw them, proclaimed through modern art in the melting pot of primitive and occidental art forms. Dynamic elements are pegged in by empty space. The aesthetic return to perpendicular and diagonal lines, edges and rectangular solids, shapes defined by the material and cut with pliers from one piece, all of these become tools for the elementary and mechanical reconstruction of a disjointed world view. ek