Blood and vulnerability are the associations linked to the deep red color of this lithograph Gotthard Graubner created for the Shelter Foundation. At first sight the color surface appears virtually monochrome. A more considered examination reveals a much more complex surface. The longer one looks at a fixed point, the more one begins to see new colors, colors in the process of evolving. Emerging from the deep dark red are lighter tones and the picture’s borders suggest an optical illusion of expanding, stretching outward. As Gotthard Graubner’s works “unfold”, they exert a meditative effect, demanding not only space, but also time.
Gotthard Graubner (1930, in Erlbach, Germany – Düsseldorf, Germany 2013)
For Gotthard Graubner, already at the start of the 1960’s, his subject was color itself, and for his non-representational works he layered color upon color on paper and canvas. Three-dimensional and often huge “Color-Space Bodies” were created by stretching canvas over synthetic wadding. Graubner participated in numerous exhibitions (such as the documenta in 1968 and 1977) and presented his Color-Space Bodies at the 1982 Biennale in Venice. His work is to be found not only in renowned museums but also in the Great Hall of the Schloss Bellevue and in the Reichstag Building in Berlin.
