Vostell, Wolf

From: A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art | Date: 1999 | Author: | Copyright information

Vostell, Wolf (1932–98). German artist, born at Leverkusen, best known as one of Europe's leading organizers of Happenings. He studied graphic techniques and typography in Cologne (1950–3) and Wuppertal (1954–5), then painting at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1955–7), and the Düsseldorf Academy (1957–8). In 1954 he devised the term ‘décollage’ for collages he made from fragments of torn posters (a technique influenced by the affichistes). Subsequently he applied the word to other works (as in ‘Décollages-Happenings') and in 1962–9 he published a magazine called Dé-coll/age. He first organized Happenings in Paris in 1958 and thereafter in numerous other cities, including Berlin and New York. In 1962 he joined the Fluxus movement. Much of his work was politically motivated, with the accent on violence and destruction, and he described the student riots in Paris in 1968 as ‘the greatest Happening of all'.

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