Schultze Klaus & Haug Nica

The German sculptor Klaus Schultze (*1927) is regarded as one of the most significant contemporary ceramic artists. Together with the well-known ceramist Nica Haug (*1958), Klaus Schultze is represented at the 9th Swiss Triennial of Sculpture with the work "The Wall". While the works of Klaus Schultze and Nica Haug always appear formally as archaic, monolithic compositions, they are at the same time inspired with loving and intelligent poetry as well as playful, imaginative fabulousness. In their unmistakable visual language, the colourful cubic motifs applied to the sculptural support in ceramic tell stories of togetherness, loneliness and social togetherness in an increasingly complex and grey world. In a playful way, the works of Klaus Schultze and Nica Haug take us back to the world of thoughts of "childlike carefreeness" (Klaus Schultze), the "release" of which is a declared artistic goal in Schultze's work. The works of Klaus Schultze and Nica Haug are thus not only to be read in the sense of poetic artistic interventions. Rather, they also represent a critical and powerful alternative to an alienated world characterised by injury, suffering, war and poverty. 

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«When I experienced brick architecture in Siena in 1969 it suddenly dawned on me what opportunities were waiting for me as a ceramist: Brick could be used to build large sculptures. So I had to learn how to bricklay and saw. And the more you get to grips with this seemingly crude material, the more design variations reveal themselves: you can model the brickwork, embed glass and ceramics in it, colour the brick and leave deep traces in it.»