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Graphic artist, video and performance artist
*1948 Schwabmünchen/Bavaria
Childhood/school years Vienna
1965-68 Freelance work at Klub Subkultur, Vienna
1969-78 Travelling Europe
1978-81 Freelance work at ‘Werkstatt für manuelle Druckverfahren’, Munich
since 1980 Studio/Dachau district
‘I work with and against the material, which can actually also be translated for my artistic work – I work with and against society in order to find out what the relationship is between society and the Sinti and Roma today.’
-Alfred Ullrich
Alfred Ullrich grew up in Vienna and now lives in Dachau. He is the son of a German and an Austrian Sintezza. As such, he feels like an outsider among outsiders. His diverse works revolve around the question of the relationship between (German) society and the Sinti and Roma. His experience: without provocation, it is difficult to get people to take a stand. So he forces the viewer to take a position in a provocative, but always bitterly charming way. However, Ullrich not only tries to dissolve the prejudices of society that have been handed down for centuries and are stuck in the collective subconscious of society, to encourage people to think and do things differently, he also deals with his own family history: Alfred Ullrich’s entire family was deported to concentration camps and most of them died there. His mother was in several camps and lost her parents, twelve siblings and her first son. She survived her imprisonment, but the traumatisation also left its mark on her son Alfred: themes such as pain, death and vulnerability are therefore a natural part of his work.
Ullrich’s upbringing itself was ‘exotic’ and certainly seems to fit the cliché of the ‘merry gypsy life’. He spent the first nine years of his life in a covered wagon on the northern outskirts of Vienna. After finishing school, he travelled all over Europe for three years until he finally landed in Munich in 1971, where he worked as a stagehand and in a workshop for manual printing processes. Ullrich’s (print) works live in the attractive field of tension between the beautiful and the coarse, between grace and provocation. At first glance, his print art does not appear to be concerned with his origins; he uses the tools of the printing trade in an experimental way and creates more abstract formations. He favours drypoint, a complicated technique that demands precision and concentration. The results are delicate, mostly abstract images that reveal the process of printing itself and dissolve the representational. If you take a closer look at the works, his playfulness becomes clear and contradictions become apparent: the structures form a diverse surface on which forms and colours enter into conflicting interplays. The printed forms are traces of physical destruction of the printing plates, whether through etching or rolling of the plates themselves or, for example, through imprints of beer cans punctured in performative actions.
In order to make a clear political statement, Alfred Ullrich no longer relies solely on his printing art, but is also increasingly appearing as an action artist. His first art action, which was captured on video and in a photo documentary, is called PERLEN VOR DIE SÄUE and dates from 2001. In a picture taken during the action, Ullrich is standing in front of a gate, pearls falling from his open hand onto the ground. The place itself is not just any old place: the Lety concentration camp was located on the site at whose entrance he stands. In 1994, the history of this camp and the murder of Roma and Sinti was published for the first time. The publication caused a scandal because the camp was used as a pig farm. This action became Ullrich’s contribution to the first Roma pavilion in Venice in 2007; he documented the action PERLEN VOR DIE SÄUE photographically.
Alfred Ullrich is also represented with prints in the EDITION FOUNDATION KAI DIKHAS.
STOPPING PLACES VII, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
ONE OFF, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
Kunst im Forum, Dachauer Forum, Dachau, DE
ROLLING HOME, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
BLACKOUT* Greyout Whiteout Braunau(t) Apartment der Kunst, München, DE
BLACKOUT Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma, Heidelberg, DE
BLACKOUT. GUGGUG, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
TRANSIDENTITIES III Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
roll-on · roll-off, A41 Galerie im Hof/Wien, AT
TRANSIDENTITIES zentrum edition exil, Wien, AT
Illustrationen “DIE URSITORY” Matéo Maximoff, Haus der Minderheiten/Prag, CZ
WORLD ROMA FESTIVAL KHAMORO, CZ
„Sechs mal Nix auf drei Teller“, Muzeum Romské Kultury/Brno, CZ
TRANSIDENTITIES/Neue Galerie Dachau, DE
Rahmen los…!/KVD Dachau, DE
„FarbenFormStruktur“ mit C. Sattler-Nefzger/Wasserturm Dachau, DE
PEARLS BEVOR SWINE/Lety, Performance, CZ
„Twenty Years of Lyrical Abstractions“, T.W. Wood Gallery/Vermont, US
„FarbenFormenStrukturen/KVD/Dachau, HAVANNA LOUNGE/Wien, AT
„X“, Franziskuswerk/Schönbrunn, DE
Künstlerhaus/Ivano-Frankivsk, DE
Berliner Stadtbibliothek/Berlin Mitte; Kunstmuseum/Ivano-Frankivsk, DE
KVD/Dachau mit G. Gottschalk und H. Müller-Cejka; Artothek Treptow/Berlin, DE
GRAFIKA mit N. Kiening, Diözesanmuseum/Katowice, PL
ATAVISMS mit L. Pichl und W. Wires, Galerie piek+fein/Berlin, DE
Kleine Galerie Junge Kunst/Waldkraiburg, DE
Kulturzentrum Zeche-Carl/Essen, DE
RʳOMA LEPANTO, Palazzo Bembo, Venedig, IT
Berlin Tales, ERIAC, Berlin, DE
Sinti* und Roma* Kunst im Kontext KüRe #1, Dokumentations und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma and Goethe Institut, Heidelberg, DE
Errichtung temporäres Mahnmal mit Delaine Le Bas, Festival E Bistarde/Vergissmeinnicht, Wien, AT
ARAKHELPES – BEGEGNUNGEN, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
Wo mein Hut hängt. Zuhause zwischen den Kulturen, Neue Galerie Dachau, DE
STOPPING PLACES VI, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
Akathe te beshen – Here We Stay, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Gallery of Czech Centers, Prag, CZ
Carte blanche mit Konrad Dördelmann, Kunstverein Schrobenhausen, DE
TRANSMITTING TRAUMA?, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
20 Jahre Kulturhaus Eschenried, DE
STOPPING PLACES V, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin , DE
Selfie, Mitgliederausstellung der KVD, Dachau, DE
Akathe Te Beshen – Hier um zu bleiben, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Kunststation Kleinsassen, DE
Kathe Ham Mer Kheri – Hier sind wir zu Hause, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, DE
Mitgliederausstellung der KVD, Dachau, DE
STOPPING PLACES IV, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
NEULAND, Apartment der Kunst, München, DE
ROMANI LIVES, Kunsthalle Exnergasse (WUK), Wien, AT
Ministry of Education warns: Segregation seriously harms you and those around you, Prague, CZ
Story of the ‘site for traveling persons’, Dachau”, DE
STOPPING PLACES III, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
What`s in a Frame?, www.3 stations.de, Muenchen, DE
the killer rabbit ranch rodeo, Nationalmuseum in Berlin und Studio Norrmann in Biberbach/Röhrmoos, DE
showrom – Stimmen der Roma, Volkshochschule Muenchen in Zusammenarbeit mit verschiedenen europäischen Kulturinstituten, DE
STOPPING PLACES II, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
Mitgliederausstellung der KVD, Dachau, DE
EuroArt, Zeitgenössische Künstler der Dachauer Künstlerkolonie, Pesterzsébeti Múzeum, Budapest, HUN
Gadschi, Roma, Sinti, Manouches, … – Positionen zwischen Ausgrenzung und Akzeptanz, KVD Galerie/Dachau, DE
roma protocol, Parlament Wien, AT
Khamoro, Prag, CZ
Call the witness, 2nd Roma Pavilion, Utrecht, NL
Call the witness, 2nd Roma Pavilion, 54. Esposizione Internazionale dàrte la Biennale di Venezia, IT
STOPPING PLACES, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin, DE
Mitgliederausstellung der KVD, Dachau, DE
Love and Friendship in the Nuclear Age, Galerie Dana Charkasi, Wien, AT
ROMALE! 10, Kunstraum Next Andrä, Graz, AT
INSIDE, OUTSSIDE and the Spaces In Between.
EuroArt, Zeitgenössische Künstler der Dachauer Künstlerkolonie, Szentendre, HUN
DIE AQUARELLIS, KVD/Dachau, DE
RAINBOW SOLDIER, LIQUID HEART
Stadtturm Galerie/Innsbruck, AT
POST FÜR DACHAU
AK 68, Wasserburg/Inn, DE
AK 68, Wasserburg/Inn, DE
Haus der Kunst/München, DE
OSNAKA99, Ivano-Frankivsk, UKR
IMPREZA (Honorable Medal), Ivano-Frankivsk, UKR
