Wolf Vostell (; 14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art, street art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are characteristic of his work, as are paintings inspired by graffiti, embedding objects in concrete and the use of television sets in his works. Wolf Vostell was married to the Spanish writer Mercedes Vostell and had two sons, David Vostell and Rafael Vostell.
Biography Wolf Vostell was born in Leverkusen, Germany, and put his artistic ideas into practice from 1950 onwards. In 1953, he began an apprenticeship as a lithographer and studied at the Academy of Applied Art in Wuppertal. Vostell created his first Dé-coll/age in 1954. In 1955–1956, he studied at the École Nationale Superieur des Beaux Arts in Paris and in 1957 he attended the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts. Vostell's 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) in 1954 to refer to the process of tearing down posters, and for the use of mobile fragments of reality. For Vostell, Dé-coll/age is a visual force that breaks down outworn values and replaces them with thinking as a function distanced from media.
His first Happening, The Theater is in the Street, took place in Paris in 1958, and incorporated auto parts and a TV.Ian Chilvers & John Glaves-Smith, A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press, p. 742 Impressed by the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen, which he encountered in the electronic studios of the German radio station WDR, he created his electronic TV Dé-coll/age in 1959. This marked the beginning of his dedication to the Fluxus Movement, which he co-founded in 1962. During this period, Vostell was behind many Happenings in New York, Berlin, Cologne, Wuppertal and Ulm among others. In 1962 he participated in the FLUXUS Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik event in Wiesbaden together with Nam June Paik, George Maciunas and other artists. In 1963 Wolf Vostell became a pioneer of Video art and Installation with his work 6-TV-Dé-coll/age shown at the Smolin Gallery in New York, now in the collections of the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. The Smolin Gallery sponsored two innovative Wolf Vostell events on TV; the first, Wolf Vostell and Television Decollage, featured visitors to the gallery who were encouraged to create poster art on the walls. In 1967 his Happening Miss Vietnam dealt with the subject of the Vietnam war. In 1968, he founded Labor e.V., a group that was to investigate acoustic and visual events, together with Mauricio Kagel, and others. In 1978 he met Salvador Dalí, with whom he would later create a joint project with a sculpture from each other in their museums.
Vostell was the first artist to integrate a television set into a work of art. This installation was created in 1958 under the title The black room and is now part of the collection of the art museum Berlinische Galerie in Berlin. Early works with television sets are Transmigracion I-III from 1958 and Elektronischer Dé-coll/age Happening RaumElectronic Dé-coll/age Happening Room 1968(Electronic Dé-coll/age Happening Room) an Installation from 1968. In 1974, his first major retrospective took place 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 1974.
Wolf Vostell's automobile-concrete-sculptures made from cars and concrete are to be found in Cologne Ruhender Verkehr (Stationary traffic) from 1969, Concrete Traffic from 1970 in Chicago, VOAEX (Viaje de (H)ormigón por la Alta Extremadura) from 1976 in the Museo Vostell Malpartida in Malpartida de Cáceres, Spain and Zwei Beton-Cadillacs in Form der nackten Maja (Two Concrete Cadillacs in form of the Naked Maja) from 1987 in Berlin.
Vostell also gained recognition for his paintings, drawings and objects, such as images of American B-52 bombers, published under the rubric "capitalist realism" and as a result of his inclusion of television sets with his paintings. Nam June Paik and Vostell were both participants in the Fluxus movement and the work of both artists involved a critique of the fetishization of television and the culture of consumption. The catalogue raisonné of his screen prints and posters has been published in the Nouvelles de l'estampe by Françoise Woimant and Anne Moeglin-Delcroix in 1982.Nouvelles de l'estampe, 1982, n°63, p. 17-24.
In 1992, the town of Cologne honoured 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 grave is at the Cementerio Civil de la Almudena in Madrid.
Artistic work From 1950 on, Vostell implemented his first artistic ideas, in 1953 he began an apprenticeship as a lithographer and attended the Werkkunstschule at the Bergische Universität with Ernst Oberhoff in Wuppertal. On 6 September 1954 in Paris, he found the word décollage (i.e. to lift off, loosen, loosen the glued, separate) on the title page of Le Figaro, which was used in connection with the crash of a Lockheed Super Constellation into the Shannon. Vostell changed the spelling to Dé-coll/age and applied the term to his poster tear-offs and happenings. For Wolf Vostell, Dé-coll/age became a design principle and a comprehensive concept of art.
In 1955/1956 he attended the Parisian École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts and in 1957 the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Vostell's Happening Das Theater ist auf der Straße from 1958 in Paris was the first happening in Europe. His happening Cityrama of 1961 in Cologne was the first happening in Germany. Vostell produced objects with televisions and car parts. Influenced by the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen in the electronic studio of the WDR, electronic TV-Dé-coll/agen were produced in 1959. This marked the beginning of his involvement in the Fluxus movement, which he co-founded in 1962.
In 1959 Vostell founded the Vostell-archive. Wolf Vostell collected photographs, artistic texts, personal correspondence with companions like Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, Dick Higgins, as well as other objects, which documented the work of the artists of his generation. Since the 1990s, Vostell's private library has been part of the archive. His work is documented photographically and is also part of the archive, which has been housed in the "Museo Vostell Malpartida" since 2006.
Vostell initiated further happenings, among others 9-Nein-dé-coll/agen in Wuppertal in 1963, the Happening You in New York in 1964 and others in Berlin, Cologne, Wuppertal and Ulm. In 1963 Wolf Vostell became a pioneer of video art with the installation 6 TV Dé-coll/age in the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía Madrid and with the video Sun in Your Head. In 1965 he took part in the 24-hour happening at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal. In 1967 he dealt with the Vietnam War in the happening Miss Vietnam. In 1968, in collaboration with the composer Mauricio Kagel and others, he founded Labor e.V., which was to research acoustic and visual events.
Vostell is regarded as the first artist who integrated a television set into a work of art. This environment from 1958, consisting of three assemblages, entitled Das schwarze Zimmer (German View, Auschwitz Spotlight 568, Treblinka) is part of the collection of the Berlinische Galerie. Early works with televisions are Transmigracion I to III, from 1958, and Elektronischer dé-coll/age Happening Raum, an installation from 1968.
Since the 1950s Wolf Vostell has thematized the Holocaust in numerous works. Wolf Vostell did not want to express with his outward appearance that he was Jewish by his appearance he rather carried his values to the outside world and thus directed himself unambiguously against the danger of suppressing or even forgetting the extermination of European Jews by the German National Socialists. With his temple curls, fur hat and caftan, he was a perfect match for the image of the enemy that the propaganda of the Hitler regime had painted as an anti-Semitic stereotype, following the example of the Eastern European Jews. He exaggerated this image by using other attributes, such as ostentatious rings on his fingers and an equally thick cigar, which in slanderous caricatures from the Nazi era had been symbolically given to the "money-greedy Jewish usurer".
First works In 1953, he initially produced traditionally produced works such as Korea and Korea Massacre (both oil on paper), War Crucifixion II (oil on canvas) as well as the watercolors The Couple, Family, Airplane and War Crucifixion. In 1955, he drew a cycle of ink drawings on Peter Schlemihl's miraculous story.
1960s In 1962 Vostell participated in the Fluxus manifestation Fluxus: International Festival of Contemporary Music in Wiesbaden and in 1963 in the Fluxus festival Festum Fluxorum Fluxus in Düsseldorf. In 1962 he founded the journal Dé-coll/age - Bulletin of Current Ideas. In 1963 he showed the installation Das schwarze Zimmer (The Black Room), which is installed in a dark room with black painted walls, in the Galerie Parnass. In 1964 Vostell initiated the Happening In Ulm, around Ulm and around Ulm - in the same year he had his first exhibition participation in the 13th exhibition of the Deutscher Künstlerbund in Berlin. In 1965 the Happenings Berlin 100 Ereignisse and 1967 Miss Vietnam followed. He often took up political and social themes.
Between 1965 and 1969, exhibitions, happenings, multiples and publications were created in collaboration with René Block. In 1968 he created the silkscreen B-52 - instead of bombs. In 1969 - in cooperation with the gallery art intermedia of Helmut Rywelski in Cologne - Vostell created his first car-concrete sculpture Ruhender Verkehr (resting traffic).
In January 1970, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago sponsored a happening in which Vostell encased a 1957 Cadillac in concrete at a parking lot near the museum, creating the work Concrete Traffic (1970). The work was moved via highway to the University of Chicago campus in 1970, where it remained for nearly four decades. The work was restored and moved to the University of Chicago campus in 2016.
Berlin and Malpartida de Cáceres In 1970 Vostell moved to Berlin. In 1970 he created Heuschrecken, an installation with 20 monitors and a video camera. The installations TV-Schuhe and TEK were created in the same year. In 1973 he created the cycle Mania. 40 works in which Vostell drew on photographs from magazines and glued objects onto the photographs. In 1973 he created the installations Auto Fieber und Energie. 1976 Vostell founded the Museo Vostell Malpartida in Malpartida de Cáceres. In 1974 he realized the happening Strawberries in Berlin.
From 1975 onwards, he worked on Spanish themes such as the paintings in the Extremadura cycle, the 1976 cycle El muerto que tiene sed (The Thirsty Dead Man) or 1985 El entierro de la Sardina (The Burial of the Sardine). In the 1980s he created the installation The Winds, the painting The Battle of Anghiari from 1982, a reminiscence of Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the same name Battle of Anghiari, the cycle Milonga from 1985, and the Tauromaqie with BMW part from 1988.