Wolf Vostell is a artist plastics technician German born with Leverkusen in 1932, died with Berlin in 1998.

Biography

Wolf Vostell was one of the principal German representatives of painting, of the sculpture and of the art of the Happening in second half of the 20th century. One of the pioneers of the Environment, Video art is considered, of Happening and movement Fluxus. Techniques like the shading or the old Dé-coll/ are characteristics of works of Wolf Vostell, just as embedding in concrete.

Wolf Vostell carries out its first artistic ideas as from 1950. In 1953 it begins a formation in lithography and goes to Wuppertal in Werkkunstschule Technical school. Impressed by a voyage to Paris in 1954, Vostell makes its first take off/old. In 1955/1956 it follows the courses of the 3Ecole Nationale Sup3erieure of the fine arts to Paris and into 1957 those of Kunstakademie of Düsseldorf.

In 1958 it takes part in the European first happening in Paris, and it produces its first objects with television sets and components of cars. Impressed by the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen with the Studio of Electronics of WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) it creates in 1954 and 1959 of take off/old TV electronic. And thus already its engagement in the Fluxus movement starts, of which he is cofounder with beginning of the year 60.

Almost at the same time, in 1959, Vostel creates the Archives Vostell. With great passion and rigorous continuity it collects photographs, texts artistic, personal correspondence with fellow travellers like Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins and well of others, press articles, invitations with exposures and events or also of the books and the catalogs, which document the creation of Vostell and the artists of its generation. In the first Sixties, Vostell becomes activist of Happening of the Fluxus movement and the video art. Of this fact during the Sixties and Seventies the Vostell files are an enormous information source for authors, editors and organizers of exposures everywhere in the world. In the Eighties and Nineties continuous heat of collector of Vostel. Its particular library contains more than 6000 volumes and fact part of the files since the Nineties. The important work of Vostell is documented by photographs and is an important part of the files. Close to 25  000 documents covering four decades make Vostell files, which are since 2006 with the Museo Vostell Malpartida, a treasure artistic and historical, accessible to historians from art, journalists and authors.

It initiates much Happenings, amongst other things in New York, Berlin, Cologne, Wuppertal and Ulm. In 1962 he collaborates in the planning of Festum Fluxorum de Wiesbaden, with Nam June Paik he advises George Maciunas. In 1963 its Environment 6 TV décoll/old is incorporated in the collection of the Musée Reina Sofía in Madrid, making of him the pioneer of the video art. In its happening Vietnam Miss, of 1967, it exposes its opinions on the war of Vietnam.

Wolf Vostell was the first artist of the history of the art which integrated a television set in a work of Article This work of Wolf Vostell, year 1958, has as a title Deutscher Ausblick and fact part of the collection of the Berlinische Galerie, in Berlin. Other works with television set are also TRANSMIGRATION I-III of the year 1958 and Environment ELEKTRONISCHER HAPPENINGRAUM of 1969.

In 1992 the town of Cologne pays homage to Wolf Vostell with a great retrospective of its artistic creation. Its works are distributed on 6 exposures: Stadtmuseum Köln, Kunsthalle Köln, Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Schloss Morsbroich Leverkusen and Städtisches Mülheim Museum/the Ruhr. Under the artistic director of David Vostell the realization of the documentary VOSTELL 60 takes place - RÜCKBLICK 92.

Vostell is interested dice 1954 in the esthetic potential of electronics. It is then in relation to the electronic studio of Cologne and becomes acquainted with Stockhausen, musician whose influence will be also determining on Nam June Paik. He was a very active member of the group Fluxus, one of the pioneers of the Video art and the inventor of the principle of takes off/old. This one largely overflows the only video art. It was inspired in Vostell by the sight of the torn posters, taken on the walls by Parisian poster artists (Raymond Hains, Jacques Villeglé, François Dufrêne).

Sculptures car-concrete of Vostell are in Cologne on the quay level of Hohenzollernring (“Ruhender Verkehr”, since 1969), in Berlin (“Concrete Cadillacs”) and in Spain in Museo Vostell Malpartida.

Some of its works

  • DEUTSCHER AUSBLICK 1958 Berlinische Galerie Berlin
  • 6 TV Takes off/old 1963 Museo Reina Sofía Madrid
  • YOU 1964 Environment
  • HOURS OFF FUN 1968 Berlinische Galerie
  • RUHENDER VERKEHR 1969 Hohenzollernring Cologne
  • Coca-Cola 1969 De-coll/old Museum Ludwig
  • Miss Amerika 1968, Museum Ludwig
  • Coca-Cola 1969 Dé-coll/old Museum Ludwig Cologne
  • Heuschrecken 1971 Museum Ludwig Wien
  • Elektronischer Happening Raum 1969 Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin
  • 2 Betoncadillacs in Form DER nackten Maja 1987 Rathenauplatz (Berlin)
  • Car-Fieber 1973 Environment Museo Vostell Malpartida
  • Mythos-Berlin 1987 Leinwand Museo Vostell Malpartida
  • Der Fall der Berliner Mauer 1989
  • Jetzt sind die Deutschen wieder Nr.1 in Europa 1986 (Nürnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum
  • Tortuga , Vostells größte Skulptur, 1989, Marl

Quotations

  • “art is life, the life is art” 1961
  • “I declare peace with the large work of art” 1979

External bonds

  • http://www.museovostell.com
  • http://www.museenkoeln.de/museum-ludwig/default.asp?sam_04_22.asp~inhalt
  • http://www.vostell.de/index.php?id=14
  • http://www.vostell.de/index.php?id=119
  • http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/suche/?qt=vostell
  • http://www.vostell75.de
  • http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=1E5935DC-5CBA-4C4C-9B42E467293AF3CC
  • http://www.montweart.de/htm/film.htm
  • http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/moore/moore6-12-01.asp
  • http://www.g26.ch/kunst_glossar_29.html
  • http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/kuenstler/vostell/biografie/
  • http://www.kunstaspekte.de/index.php?action=webpages&k=303
  • http://www.wolf-vostell.de
  • http://www.luxflux.net/n2/carlab1.htm #
  • http://www.kunstwissen.de/fach/f-kuns/o_mod/vostel0.htm
  • http://www.psa-peugeot-citroen.com/en/magazine/magazine_doss_c4.php?id=142

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