Internationally, Ulrich Rückriem’s rank among German sculptors is uncontested. Basically, he is a classical sculptor in the true sense of the word: he goes to a quarry, chooses his stones, and works on them with his own hands; however, he does not chisel an alien form into them but fetches out the rough stone’s own sensual value, either by determining the optimal incision into an untouched surface or by disclosing the inner character of a stone by polishing. The intervention of the craftsman: the traces of breakage and cut seams; of the artist: the proportions and matching of the sides, pure form, that is.

Georg Jappe