Wolf Vostell

Wolf Vostell (born 14 October 1932 in Leverkusen, Germany, died 3 April 1998 in Berlin) was a German painter, sculptor and Happening artist of the second half of the 20th century. Wolf Vostell is considered one of the pioneers of video art, environment-sculptures, Happenings and the Fluxus Movement. Techniques such as blurring and the dé-collage are characteristic of his work, as is embedding objects in concrete.

Early life

Wolf Vostell put his artistic ideas into practice from 1950 onwards. In 1953 he began an apprenticeshipas a lithographer and studied at the Academy of Applied Art in Wuppertal. Vostell created his first dé-coll/age in 1954.In 1955/56 he studied at the École Nationale Superieur des Beaux Arts in Paris and in 1957 heattended the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts.

Works

His philosophy was built around the idea that destruction is all around us and it runs through all of the twentieth century. He used the term dé-coll/age (in connection with a plane crash) to refer to the process of tearing down posters, and for the use of mobile fragments of reality. His first Happening, "Theater is in the Street", took place in Paris in 1958, and incorporated auto parts and a TV.

In 1958 he took part in the first European Happening in Paris and he produced his first objects with television sets and car parts. He was impressed by the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen, which he encountered in 1964 in the electronic studios of the German radio station WDR, and in 1959 he created his electronic "TV dé-coll/ages". It marked the beginning of his dedication to the Fluxus-Movement, which he co-founded in the 1960s.

At more or less the same time, he founded the Vostell Archive. With great fervour and strict consistency, Vostell collected photographs, artistic texts, private correspondence with colleagues such as Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins and many others, as well as press cuttings, invitations to exhibitions and events or books and catalogues which document Vostell's work and that of his contemporaries. In the early 1960s he was one of the activists involved in the Fluxus-Movement Happenings and in video art. In the 1960s and 1970s the Vostell Archive therefore became a comprehensive source of information for authors, publishers and exhibition organisers from around the world. Vostell’s passion for collecting did not diminish in the 1980s and 1990s, and since then his private library with more than 6,000 books has formed part of the Archive. Vostell’s extensive oeuvre is documented in photographic form and makes up an important part of the archive. About 25,000 documents from four decades make the Vostell Archive a treasure of art history. Since 2006 the archive has been housed in the Museo Vostell Malpartida and is available to art historians, journalists and authors.

Vostell was behind many Happenings, in New York, Berlin, Cologne, Wuppertal and Ulm among others.

In 1962 he participated in the planning of the Festum Fluxorum, an international event in Wiesbaden together with Nam June Paik, and George Maciunas. In 1963 Vostell became a pioneer of videoart with his environment "6 TV dé-coll/age" shown at the Smollin Gallery in New York,and now in the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. In 1967 his Happening "Miss Vietnam" dealt with the subject of the Vietnam war. In 1968 he foundedLabor e.V., a group that was to investigate acoustic and visual events, together with Mauricio Kagel and others.

Wolf Vostell was the first artist in art history to integrate a television set into a work of art. This work of art was created in 1958 under the title "Deutscher Ausblick" ("German view") is nowpart of the collection of the art museum Berlinische Galerie in Berlin. Early works with television sets are "Transmigracion" I-III from 1958 and "Elektronischer De-coll/age Happeningraum", (E.D.H.R), ("electronic de-coll/age happening room"), an environmental sculpture from 1969.

In 1974 took place his first large retrospective in the ARC 2 at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, an expanded version of which was shown at the Neue Nationalgalerie, in 1975.

In 1992 the town of Cologne honoured Wolf Vostell with a major retrospective of his work.His pieces were distributed over 6 exhibition venues: Stadtmuseum Köln, Kunsthalle Köln,
Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Schloss Morsbroich Leverkusen and Städtisches Museum Mülheim/Ruhr.Under the artistic direction of David Vostell, the documentary "VOSTELL 60-RÜCKBLICK 92"("VOSTELL 60-REVIEW 92") was created.

Vostell’s sculptures made from cars and concrete are to be found in Cologne "Ruhender Verkehr" ("Stationary traffic")from 1969, in Berlin "Beton Cadillacs"("Concrete Cadillacs") as well as VOAEX (Viaje de Hormigón por la Alta Extremadura) in the Museo Vostell Malpartida at Malpartida Spain.

Vostell gained fame as well with his drawings and objects, such as images of American B-52 bombers, published under the rubric "capitalist realism" or by including television sets with his paintings. Nam June Paik and Vostell were two figures of the Fluxus Movement and both developed a great fetishism for television and the culture of consumption.

Works

* „Deutscher Ausblick“ 1958 Berlinische Galerie Berlin
* „6 TV De-coll/age“ 1963 Museo Reina Sofía Madrid
* „YOU“ 1964
* „HOURS OF FUN“ 1968 Berlinische Galerie Berlin
* „Ruhender Verkehr“ 1969 Köln
* „Coca-Cola“ 1969 De-coll/age Museum Ludwig Köln
* „Miss Amerika“ 1968, „Coca-Cola“ 1969 Dé-coll/age Museum Ludwig Köln
* „Heuschrecken“ 1971 Museum Ludwig Wien
* „Elektronischer De-coll/age Happening Raum“ 1969 Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin
* „Beton Cadillacs“ 1987 Rathenauplatz Berlin
* „Auto-Fieber“ 1973 Environment Museo Vostell Malpartida
* „Mythos-Berlin“ 1987 Museo Vostell Malpartida
* „Der Fall der Berliner Mauer“ 1989

References

*Wasmuth Verlag, "Vostell Automobile"

External links

* [http://www.museovostell.com The Vostell Museum in Malpartida de Cáceres, Spain]
* [http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/moore/moore6-12-01.asp ArtNet Profile, Focus on paintings]
* [http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/suche/?qt=vostell List of works]
* [http://cms.ifa.de/en/exhibitions/exhibitions-abroad/bk/fluxus/ Fluxus on IFA]