translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
011214 : Museum Gugging - Adolf Wölfli.universum!
Museum Gugging
Adolf Wölfli.universum!
18.09.2014 – 01.03.2015
Houses collapsing, angels fighting
By Nina Schedlmayer
How many rooms does one need to present an oeuvre such as this in its entirety? Adolf Wölfli, presumably the first Art Brut artist, produced art, well, like mad: His fictitious autobiographical narration “Skt. Adolf-Riesen-Schöpfung” consists of 45 large notebooks and 16 exercise books, which include 25,000 pages as well as 1,600 illustrations and 1,600 collages. Daniel Baumann, curator of the exhibition at the Museum Gugging limited the presentation to 50 works, beginning in 1904 – a clever decision, since Wölfli’s art is rather redundant.
His life’s work, which is divided into several series (among them “From cradle to grave” or “Geographic and Algebraic notebooks”), plays in a universe of which he considered himself the ruler. These worlds of fantasy from which a narration evolves are interspersed by columns of figures and neatly written text. The compositions exhibit a certain rigor, structured by ribbons and stripes that intertwine, intersect, form circles and ovals and in the midst of which one finds heads, masks, houses, snails, clocks, crosses, stars, gates, eyes and angel-like creatures – a never-ending flow of texts and images.
His later works are shown in the last room (Trauer-Marsch – Funeral-March) - they consist of text and collaged elements – mainly newspaper clippings and advertisements: the photo of the funeral of a Habsburg monarch is next to an ad for coffee filters; ads for ladies underwear, silver cutlery, tea cookers and chocolate are also found in these works – however, compared to the visually stunning worlds of previous times they appear remarkably plain and shallow.
Museum Gugging
3400 Gugging, Am Campus 2
Tel: +43 676 841181 200
Fax: +43-2243-87 087 382
email: gallery@gugging.org
http://www.gugging.org
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011214
Museum Gugging
3400 Maria Gugging, Am Campus 2
Tel: +43 2243 87 087
Email: museum@museumgugging.at
http://www.museumgugging.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 10-18 h
Museum Gugging
3400 Maria Gugging, Am Campus 2
Tel: +43 2243 87 087
Email: museum@museumgugging.at
http://www.museumgugging.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 10-18 h