| Micha Ullman | |
| Native Name: | מיכה אולמן |
| Native Name Lang: | he |
| Birth Date: | 11 October 1939 |
| Birth Place: | Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine |
| Nationality: | Israeli |
Micha Ullman (Hebrew: מיכה אולמן; born 11 October 1939) is an Israeli sculptor and professor of art.
Ullman was born in Tel Aviv to German Jews who immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1933.[1] As a teenager, he attended the Kfar HaYarok agricultural school.[2] In 1960-1964, he studied at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. In 1965, he attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, where he learned etching.[2]
Ullman is married to Mira, and lives in Ramat Hasharon, Israel.[2]
He taught at Bezalel Academy in 1970 - 1978. He became a visiting professor at Academy of Arts Düsseldorf in 1976. He taught at the University of Haifa from 1979 - 1989. He was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart from 1991 to 2005.[3]
Ullman created the underground “Empty Library” memorial on Bebelplatz square in Berlin, where the Nazi book burnings began in 1933. The memorial consists of a window on the surface of the plaza, under which vacant bookshelves are lit and visible. A bronze plaque bears a quote by Heinrich Heine: “Where books are burned in the end people will burn.”[4] This memorial was inaugurated in May 1995.[5] (see book burning). Ullman explains: "It begins with the void that exists in every pit and will not disappear. You could say that emptiness is a state, a situation formed by the sides of the pit: The deeper it is, the more sky there will be and the greater the void. In the library containing the missing books, that void is more palpable. We expect [the books] but they are not there."[2]
In 1997, Ullman completed a synagogue memorial in collaboration with Zvi Hecker and Eyal Weizmann, commemorating the former Lindenstraße synagogue in Kreuzberg.[6]
Another of his creations is "Hochwasser" ("Flooding") on a small island near the Werra River in Germany. It was inspired by a boat Ullman saw there with a sign on it stating it had a capacity of up to seven passengers. Ullman's father, Yitzhak, who had lived nearby, immigrated to Palestine with his seven siblings in 1933.[2]
Ullman is represented in the art collection of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart with the representative fourpart work ″Du″, created in 1992 and shown at Documenta 9, which was given to the Academy as a permanent loan in 1993 by the Ministry of Science and Art Baden-Württemberg at the suggestion of the former Rector and head of the collection, Wolfgang Kermer.[7]
Ullman creates subterranean sculptures, some of which barely protrude from the ground. They touch on universal themes such as the meaning of place and home, absence and emptiness. They have been described as simultaneously "celestial and earthbound, metaphysical but sensual and tactile.
Ullman was awarded the Israel Prize for sculpture in April 2009.[8] [9]