Weserburg presents an exhibition of work by Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, on view 24.02.2012 – 28.05.2012.
Wols, Vascello all’ancora, um 1944/45, Tuschfeder und Aquarell auf Papier, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012, Karin und Uwe Hollweg Sammlung
He is one of the most prominent artists of the 20th century, yet scarcely anyone knows his name. Art history views him as the pioneer of Art Informel painting, and yet the complexity of his artistic existence defies any categorization. In 1932, just nineteen years old, he leaves Germany to have his finger on the pulse of time in Paris. He gains access to bohemian circles there but continues to be a loner. For throughout his life he struggled for an existence beyond the middle-class, and in doing so not lastly slid into the vicissitudes of the National Socialist war against European culture.
Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, who began calling himself WOLS in 1937, is one of the most colorful artist personalities of the last century. In close contact with the great artists and poets in 1930s Paris, he launched his artistic career as a self-taught artist with the medium of photography. During his photographic excursions he captures a different image of Paris by focusing on the small miracles, the remote, and the alien beyond the dazzling façades. When at the outset of World War II he, as a German in France, has to spend time in various detention camps, he begins to draw. He produces wondrous watercolors that delineate a bizarre, fantastic world of images of human existence. He develops the idea for an alternative artistic draft of the world—CIRCUS WOLS.
The exhibition, which will be accompanied by a catalogue with contributions by Carsten Ahrens, Öyvind Fahlström, Olaf Metzel, and Roberto Ohrt, is being generously supported by the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation.
Weserburg Museum of Modern Art
Teerhof 20 28199
Bremen Germany
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