This exhibition features a powerful selection of installations, paintings, sculptures and films, among other very varied art media used by Vostell, from the late 50s to 1998, as well as a selection from his rich archive of many documentation related to many of his most important projects. For decades Vostell has used art as a means to interrogate artistic, cultural and social identities, resulting in a rich, complex and provocative body of work that has consistently challenged dominant political and artistic narratives.
A comprehensive exhibition of the work of Wolf Vostell in a major public institution is long overdue. Despite the academic and critical attention his work has received, there have been few opportunities to see his work in depth, either in Spain or indeed elsewhere, even in is native Germany. Although including some of his works, his participation in major international exhibitions has also been limited the last years.
This exhibition at the MUSAC is pertinent because it shows a relevant set of his work just 20 years after his death and 40 after the important retrospective titled Bilder 1959–1974 dedicated to him by the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo of Madrid in 1978.