Artist’s Statement

The Art of Ulrich Klimt
Author: Georg-Christoph Bertsch

What would be an increase in the principle of l'art pour l'art? Maybe l'art pour soi-même, i.e. art for its own sake and art only for itself?
After Ulrich Klimmt's death, the family asked his younger brother Reinhard to take over and look after the artistic legacy. At that moment began the discovery of a tremendous work - thousands of works - that no one but himself had ever seen before.
Born in Berlin in 1932, Ulrich Klimmt left the capital with his family in 1944 to find a new home in the deepest province of Lower Saxony after a stopover on Rügen. However, the magic of the big city did not let Ulrich go, which, a few years later, led to his decision to study at the Berlin University of Fine Arts.
The free play of techniques
Opening up this work is like opening a safe, finding a vein of gold. This shows all the seemingly random techniques that he tried out, images that he dismantled years after they were first edited to create collages, a lot of undated images and a cornucopia of motifs.
After a first-class artistic training, Ulrich Klimmt worked at Pro. Heinrich Graf Luckner at the HFBK Berlin decided early on against entering the art market. He didn't exhibit, he didn't sell anything. He gave a few works to his brother Reinhard. Ulrich preferred working as a teacher in the rather tranquil city of Celle.
What no one knew until recently: He produced constantly.
The diversity of motifs
His motifs: nudes, animals, landscapes, plants come from the outside world, from travel, hikes, and precise observations of the seasons. But they also come from his inner world: as metaphors, symbols of himself, especially in relation to the opposite sex. Animal motifs often also contain an ironic component: Ulrich, as a fish, on a woman's back.
His relationship with women. Women are a super-issue for him. Standing, swimming, sitting, in costumes, as an act, again and again as an act, as actresses in imaginary pieces. And his own wife - for the entire period of their long marriage. She, an artist like him, in the dance with other women who inspired him, who he liked, who attracted him.
His techniques: He enjoyed a thorough and high-quality classical academic education. Once he has learned the techniques, he varies them more and more over time, initially in the 1950s, later liberating himself. He tries out everything for his own pleasure, mixes x techniques and starts in the 2000s with completely new techniques. He begins to use collages, showing no respect for his old works, which he continues to edit, tear up, manipulate and paint over. There are works that he marked "started 1995, finished 2017".
Ulrich Klimmt's works begin to have an effect on us. Those who explore them archivally in amazement are drawn into them. His often suggestive images produce new inner images in us. They were locked away like a time capsule, ready to take effect now, after his death.