Page 33 - Studio International - January 1965

Last summer on the Rhine and Ruhr

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Wolfgang Lingemann). also in the Bochum Artists'
show. Last autumn Falazik is showing a new recruit.
young Manfred Wotke. Wotke is a purely linear artist.
whose form-elements lie between revolving machines
and Aztec suns. The panache of his execution tends
sometimes to hide his subtle play on space. This grimy
factory town is proving a nursery of talent. In the Boch um
Artists' show I was impressed also by Edmund Kiesel­
bach (whose one-man show Falazik has announced).
Edmund Neschen and Gudrun Wywias. all of whose
work had been unknown to me before.
Marianne Aue. who has been showing at Pianohaus
Kohl in Gelsenkirchen. also belongs to the ornamental
tendency. Her painted reliefs. mostly monochrome.
at first glance seem like decorations. Rosettes or rect­
angles. grids. horseshoe curves or crusted lines like
coral. one could imagine them as a new form of stucco
work on walls or ceilings. But if one sees them. not by
the vague lighting of a gallery but sharply lit up from
the side, they come to life. The plane stretches. the little
forms vibrate. Material character is overcome and one
sees how these rhythms modulate the light. Then space
and movement are crystallized into a plastic form. I
should classify Meckseper. the young neo-surrealist
now showing at the Niepel Gallery. as an ornamental
painter. too. He has a great affinity with Morosow. But
instead of icons, he is fascinated by the painting and
especially engraving of the sixteenth century. He uses
the dull colours. anonymous surfaces and a kind of
parody of the themes (all complete with titles written-in)
as something like a mask. Things not possible to say­
or paint-can still be hinted at. Behind the ornamental
arrangements the threat is plain. One has not felt 1t
clearer since the early Chirico. ■
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