The recent exhibition brings together works made of and on paper from all phases of the artist’s production, spanning from 1948 until today. Nearly two years ago, Ursula Sax, born in 1935, happened to surprise us once again with great works, at the same time demons-trating her skills and mastery in sculpture. Using the amazingly simple material of paper, or more precisely huge paper rolls from the former GDR paper factory in Eberswalde, the artist has shown us her ability to fathom space in all its dimensions and imagine herself in that space; and she can also think around the corner when it comes to sculpture. Her 7 m high wrapped altar shown in the Paul-Gerhardt Church in Berlin/Prenzlauer Berg during the Passion Season in 2019 and the two-part egg-yolk yellow hanging sculpture of 5 m height in the Kunst- und Gewerbeverein Regensburg impressively demonstrate how confidently the sculptor Ursula Sax uses to master space creating idiosyncratic and inviting shapes. 

In fact, the exhibition is a reduced version of an extensive book with the same title I published last year and which presents her artistic career on 520 pages. Ursula Sax has become known especially for her works made of other materials like stone, wood, stainless steel, or bronze, and also for her sculptures in the public space. This (incomplete but rather extensive) compilation of her works made of or drawn on paper that are presented in the book – of which the exhibition can only be conceived as an excerpt – will lay the foundations for future reception of these less known or in the meantime forgotten work series. 
In the beginning it was not easy to foresee how many pages the book would have in the end. For me, it felt rather like research, continually unveiling new treasures of her work and fitting one piece of the puzzle to another, and hoping that they would eventually fit together as a whole. 
A substantial part of this publication was funded by the Stiftung Bild-Kunst in Bonn, and the exhibition has been made possible by the federal funding program Neustart Kultur.  
Semjon H. N. Semjon, April 2021

Book release: Sunday May 23, 3 pm  The Cast Whale Project by Gil Shachar: Parallel with Ursula Sax’ exhibition, the life-size whale sculpture by Gil Shachar will be on display from April 22nd to May 14th, daily from 11 am – 8 pm, just around the corner in the St. Elisabeth’s Church built by Friedrich Schinkel: Invalidenstraße 3.

Ursula Sax – aus und auf Papier

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