Exhibition of Works by Multi-Talented Artist Robert Rehfeldt on View at Weserburg Museum

BREMEN.- Robert Rehfeldt was one of the most well-known and most important artists in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) of the 1970s and ’80s. He was a draughtsman, graphic artist, painter, filmmaker, action artist, visual poet and mail artist. His worldwide artistic connections made him a contact partner for numerous artists in the East and West. The exhibition is on view until Feb. 6th, 2011 at the Weserburg Museum.

He would have celebrated his eightieth birthday in January 2011. The exhibition thus also pays homage to an exceptional artist who, undaunted by Socialist Realism and the doctrinaire bureaucracy of the GDR, created a complex oeuvre characterized by a unique brand of visual and linguistic subversiveness.

The exhibition of the Research Centre for Artists’ Publications is the first to focus on his entire graphic oeuvre, which mirrors the story of a restless and uncomfortably non-conformist artistic career in its many facets. In addition to lithographs, etchings, woodcuts and silk-screens, Rehfeldt executed cliché prints which incorporate the principle of sequencing and are among his most interesting printmaking works.

For the latter, he also made use of montage techniques of Mail Art merging semantic and artistic structures. His statements or word works, for example ‘Künstler rührt Euch, sonst werdet ihr weggetreten’ / ‘Artists, bestir yourselves, otherwise you’ll be dismissed’ exist as postcards or stamp prints and in a kind of “cross-writing” become visual poetry. These art-mail letters or Contart News are graphic works and letters at once.

Aside from original prints and two important graphic portfolios, the exhibition also features graphic posters, artist’s postage stamps, small-scale graphic works in the form of postcards, stamp works and Mail Art works. These will be further supplemented by exhibition posters, photographic works and cinematic activities providing an impression of Robert Rehfeldt’s artistic oeuvre as a whole. Numbering over two hundred, the individual works are presented at the Research Centre on two exhibition levels.

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