Hermann Glöckner participated in progressive artist associations such as the Dresden Secession and Deutsche Künstlerbund (Association of German Artists) in the aftermath of World War I, and cultivated a mostly abstract visual language through his Tafelwerke (“panel works”) during the 1930s. These works systematically examined basic forms and materials of painting on double-sided wooden panels, but the Nazi vilification of abstract art as “degenerate” forced the artist to transform his practice into an entirely private affair. During these years Glöckner and his wife earned their living by working as contractors specializing in wall ornamentation. However, after World War II, the newly founded socialist republic in East Germany likewise proved an inhospitable environment for Glöckner’s art until state cultural policies began to soften in the late 1960s. Professionally marginalized, Glöckner supported himself by painting decorations and carving on building façades.
Four Black and White Rectangular Shafts is one of his miniature sculptures called modelli (“models”), for which Glöckner manipulated materials from his household to create unique, intimate objects that he kept private, rarely exhibiting them during his lifetime. The painted medicine boxes in Four Black and White Rectangular Shaftsprecariously slump to one side and invite multiple interpretations: is the work a formal exercise or a logical continuation of his Tafelwerke? Does it serve as an acknowledgment of the aging artist’s health or as commentary on his delicate position within the stifling East German cultural ecosystem? Glöckner seems to suggest that these issues are not necessarily separable, and forms indeed constitute politics of their own.
