Torben Ulrich: Marks of Play, Re-marks on Being
On his 90th birthday, Torben Ulrich open the exhibition Marks of Play, Re-marks on Being, featuring his new works at Galleri Tom Christoffersen! Presenting new collages collectively entitled B(w)alligraphies, the exhibition also features a new series of rice-paper paintings created by the artist last year. They continue his practice from the past forty years of using skipping ropes and tennis balls, now introducing a new element into the pictorial field: an imprint of the net as the setting around which the game unfolds. The pictorial balancing act is now performed by the black traces left by the skipping rope and the red seal-of-play imprints made by the tennis ball in the grey web of the net.
Torben Ulrich鈥檚 pictorial work is closely linked to his background as an athlete, chiefly a tennis player, but also incorporating subjects of interest such as philosophy, music, poetry, and the visual arts. Following sporadic experiments in the 1970s, Torben Ulrich created his first series of paintings, entitled Imprints of Practice, in 1981. These works were essentially an exploration of the patterns emerging when a tennis ball soaked in colour is played against a vertical plane 鈥� a direct analogy to the solo practice performed by a tennis player against a wall. In 1982-83, different versions of Imprints of Practice were shown in Newport Beach, Houston, and Kansas City. After this, Torben Ulrich鈥檚 paintings have been shown in numerous locations around the world; in Denmark, for the first time, in an exhibition entitled Murbrokker Boldm忙rker (Brick Fragments Ball Marks) at Galerie Birch, Copenhagen, in 1985.
For many years, Ulrich鈥檚 preferred materials have been ink and rice paper, with his preferred tools mainly being tennis racquets, tennis balls, and skipping ropes. The work is done in two planes, a horizontal and a vertical one. With a skipping rope soaked in colour, marks are made on a piece of rice paper lying flat on the ground 鈥� the intrinsic touchstone for the body, for jumping. Afterwards, the picture is hung on a wall and 鈥榮ealed鈥�, so to speak, with a tennis ball similarly soaked in colour. It involves a degree of chance, of course. But at the same time, the positioning of the elements is guided by a specific intention, a body, a glance, a set of remedies, everything immanent in the situation: when the ball comes 鈥�
Torben Ulrich鈥檚 images trigger many associations: Abstract expressionism. Jackson Pollock鈥檚 drip paintings. Oriental pictorial art inspired by anything from calligraphy to Zen Buddhism. The tradition of Western pictorial art emerging in the wake of the exposure of Asian art in the 1950s, from Mark Tobey onward. However, Torben Ulrich himself asserts that his main intention with the rice papers is not to create pictorial art, but rather to visually explore situations, phenomena, and ideas that he also addresses in other media, and which are essentially rooted in his practice as a ball player.
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On his 90th birthday, Torben Ulrich open the exhibition Marks of Play, Re-marks on Being, featuring his new works at Galleri Tom Christoffersen! Presenting new collages collectively entitled B(w)alligraphies, the exhibition also features a new series of rice-paper paintings created by the artist last year. They continue his practice from the past forty years of using skipping ropes and tennis balls, now introducing a new element into the pictorial field: an imprint of the net as the setting around which the game unfolds. The pictorial balancing act is now performed by the black traces left by the skipping rope and the red seal-of-play imprints made by the tennis ball in the grey web of the net.
Torben Ulrich鈥檚 pictorial work is closely linked to his background as an athlete, chiefly a tennis player, but also incorporating subjects of interest such as philosophy, music, poetry, and the visual arts. Following sporadic experiments in the 1970s, Torben Ulrich created his first series of paintings, entitled Imprints of Practice, in 1981. These works were essentially an exploration of the patterns emerging when a tennis ball soaked in colour is played against a vertical plane 鈥� a direct analogy to the solo practice performed by a tennis player against a wall. In 1982-83, different versions of Imprints of Practice were shown in Newport Beach, Houston, and Kansas City. After this, Torben Ulrich鈥檚 paintings have been shown in numerous locations around the world; in Denmark, for the first time, in an exhibition entitled Murbrokker Boldm忙rker (Brick Fragments Ball Marks) at Galerie Birch, Copenhagen, in 1985.
For many years, Ulrich鈥檚 preferred materials have been ink and rice paper, with his preferred tools mainly being tennis racquets, tennis balls, and skipping ropes. The work is done in two planes, a horizontal and a vertical one. With a skipping rope soaked in colour, marks are made on a piece of rice paper lying flat on the ground 鈥� the intrinsic touchstone for the body, for jumping. Afterwards, the picture is hung on a wall and 鈥榮ealed鈥�, so to speak, with a tennis ball similarly soaked in colour. It involves a degree of chance, of course. But at the same time, the positioning of the elements is guided by a specific intention, a body, a glance, a set of remedies, everything immanent in the situation: when the ball comes 鈥�
Torben Ulrich鈥檚 images trigger many associations: Abstract expressionism. Jackson Pollock鈥檚 drip paintings. Oriental pictorial art inspired by anything from calligraphy to Zen Buddhism. The tradition of Western pictorial art emerging in the wake of the exposure of Asian art in the 1950s, from Mark Tobey onward. However, Torben Ulrich himself asserts that his main intention with the rice papers is not to create pictorial art, but rather to visually explore situations, phenomena, and ideas that he also addresses in other media, and which are essentially rooted in his practice as a ball player.
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