Wolf Vostell is a German artist (1932 - 1998). A major player in the Fluxus, happening and video art movements with Nam June Paik, he ushered in a new era in contemporary art: the television image, media and mixed techniques. As early as 1954, Wolf Vostell began to put into practice his principle of “de-collage”, a neologism for the erasure, covering and hijacking of media. In 1958, his interest in the aesthetic potential of electronics led him to become the first artist to integrate a television set into a work of art. Driven by a strong political commitment and a desire to denounce the over-power of the media, his transdisciplinary work confronted both past and present history. In 1976, he founded a museum in Malpartida de Cáceres, Spain, dedicated to his work and to Fluxus, while devoting himself to sculpture. The latter paid tribute to him in 1992 with a major retrospective divided into six exhibitions.

“Fernseh-De-coll/age (Télé Dé-coll/age)”, “Verzerrungen und Verwischungen (Distorsions et brouillages)” will be presented at OFFSCREEN. This is a set of 51 original black-and-white silver prints from 1967. The particularity of this creation lies as much in its technical conception as in the message it conveys. The artist photographs the images emitted by his television set. In some of these photographs, however, the distorted content remains identifiable. Removed from their original context and function, these images lose their technical nature: originally dynamic, they are now frozen on paper. Vostell later decided to collect 51 of these images in a book, dedicated to Benno Ohnesorg, a student murdered by a policeman during a demonstration against the visit of the Shah of Iran to West Berlin on June 2, 1967. This bias demonstrates Vostell’s interest in bearing witness to current events and encouraging the public to reflect on the consequences of violent acts. A handwritten letter to his publisher will also be presented.

Conceived as an atypical cultural venue, a multidisciplinary melting pot dedicated to contemporary art in all its forms, Galerie Sinibaldi aims to foster links between photography and contemporary art.