He is known to anyone interested in Conceptual Object Art, with land art and installations. He is one of the most central figures. Günther Uecker has been a guest artist at the Erker Galerie in St. Gallen for years, and here there is a hint of another side. Many important prints by this artist were printed by Erker-Presse, which published some of his writings as well. 'Nonetheless, the gallery in Erker was not the only battlefield in which Uecker's important battles were fought. These took place as well in Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Amsterdam, Brussels, Stockholm, New York, Kassel, Venice and Warsaw. But for Uecker, the Erker Gallery was always a place which he could think back on and collect his thoughts', stated Dieter Honisch at the opening to the exhibit 'Grenzverhältnisse' (Border Relations) in St. Gallen in 1983. The artist's nail reliefs were shown then. But who is the other Uecker who is discussed today?

In a project description from l961 by the title 'Licht-Spiel' (Play of Light), Uecker writes: 'My works become real through light. Their intensity can be changed through light absorption, and from the viewpoint of the observer, it is variable...'

Proof that the other Uecker is not an invention, that he was contemporary at all times, almost as a mirror to contemporary movements, can be confirmed in passages from his writings (poems, project descriptions, interviews and reflections, collected and published in 1979 by Erker-Verlag):

'Since our concept of space is not on Earth but in the sky, we want to create a space which cannot be trodden by the viewer, which, like the sky from an airplane, can only be seen. Instead of the floor, the viewer will see the clouds from above, and instead of the airplane window, the viewer will look through a colored glass window. Our object will sway in space and the light will be dynamically reflected. Everything should be light, immaterial; a poetic appearance of light, of space and movement showing an atmosphere beyond touch and pure.'

Before continuing with Uecker's explanation, a word from Wieland Schmid (Erker Verlag 1980) as a retrospective look: 'Günther Uecker has always worked a great deal in and with the landscape, but he only marginally painted and drew landscapes as studies. He used sand and worked with soil, sowed seeds and observed the growth. This became ZERO's program, or part of it: to understand and use nature in a new fashion. Uecker had declared himself in favor of this program. It determined a starting point, provided his beginnings.' This is part of a project description from 1969: 'On take 4 of the film, panning the nail field: Nail the field. Sowing the nails in the plowed furrows'. Last take: 'At the end, put a nail right through the film'.

Along with Mack and Piene, Uecker belonged to the ZERO group - a cooperative, a coming together of collective and the individual, an association for personal goals, based on an 'uneasiness which should be seen as part of our post-war experience.' Uneasiness with respect to Informal painting was also included: 'so that I, from its very premises, couldn't identify with it'. In an interview, Uecker refers to 'poems' as expressions of the moment, where thoughts come together with the senses: 'All of my formulas are pictorial phenomenology, because I think pictorially. This occurs simply via sensibility, through the ability for contemplation of someone who keeps himself open'.

Littenheid could be anywhere in the world. In 1980, Uecker created his first 'landscape paintings'. During a project trip with his art students from Düsseldorf in 1980 in Littenheid, in the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland, Uecker had retreated into the contemplation of the landscape for several hours every day. The requirements he set himself were: 'the same place, same time, same material and format'. Thus, in two weeks, he created 138 watercolors and 6 pencil drawings in the format 12.3 cm x 15.5 cm. This was the beginning. This very procedure was to become for many years (indeed, to the present) his personal method. A branch had sprung from the long years of work with and around nails. 'What was already perceptible in his Littenheid watercolors and his lonely island studies, at the same time on a parallel track, is now present in his work today.'