Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt – Wie eine Spinne im Netz


Editor(s)	Jenny Graser
Author(s)	Jenny Graser, Dagmar Korbacher, Klaus Lederer, Fabienne Meyer, Kathleen Reinhardt
Design	Book Book, Berlin
Cover	Softcover with flaps
Size	22,6 × 29,7 cm
Pages	216
Illustrations	172
Language(s)	German
ISBN	978-3-96912-104-7

Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt (b. Wurzen, Germany, 1932; lives in Berlin) is one the few East German female artists who devoted themselves to graphic art produced on the typewriter. Working on her trusty “Erika,” she arranged letters, digits, commas, and plus signs to compose imaginative visual creations. Under her hands, the black and red characters were transformed into poetic verbal images, gently undulating waves, serial patterns, and architectonic or figurative formations. Sometimes verging on concrete poetry, these typewritings also evince unmistakable affinities with conceptual and minimalist art. In the 1980s, the artist expanded on them in collages that recall Hannah Höch’s Dadaist visual montages. With her graphic work, Wolf-Rehfeldt was also an active participant in the GDR’s mail-art program: she sent the typewritings to artists beyond the impassable borders of her country, building an extensive network of correspondences that spanned the globe.

The richly illustrated monograph underscores the diversity and contemporary relevance of Wolf-Rehfeldt’s works, which were created in the shadow of the Cold War and address the fragility of peace as well as early manifestations of the environmental devastation wrought by the industrial age.