Christian Wulffen

Christian Wulffen follows a neoconceptual, neo-Constructivist approach. Assembled from industrially produced construction materials such as wood slats, MDF molding, drafting film, aluminum, or tape, Wulffen’s works put the perception of space to the test. To do so he employs an aesthetic coordinate system he has developed, which enters into a dialogue with existing ordering systems.

As ordinary as the materials of Christian Wulffen’s works may be, their arrangement is just as precise and planned. By emphasizing constructional elements, by concentrating on horizontals and verticals, the artist achieves a condensation of spatial dimensions. Using ever-new approaches, but always following the same ordering principle, the artist explores the makeup of these dimensions: structure and space, object and surroundings, inside and outside, and last but not least the relationship of construction and ordering function.

Recently, Christian Wulffen has increasingly been integrating photographs into his systematic installations. The choice of landscapes and architecture is not based on qualities of these motifs such as attractiveness or suggestions of meaning but is motivated rather entirely by structural or spatial considerations. In this way, the photographs support one of the central insights one repeatedly encounters in Christian Wulffen’s works: the construction of reality begins with the things we encounter but also very crucially with the constructed nature of our perception itself. That might be the most general response when asked what Christian Wulffen’s works mean.