Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
In the end something begins with us
ChertLüdde, Berlin
11 January – 22 February 2025
A decade after Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt’s first show with the gallery, ChertLüdde presents In the end something begins with us, a retrospective show dedicated to the Berlin artist’s enduring legacy. The exhibition, lending its title from a newly published manuscript originally written by the artist in the 1980s, offers an archival survey of Wolf-Rehfeldt’s artistic practice spanning three decades.
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt (1932, Wurzen – 2024, Berlin) embarked on an artistic journey characterized by meticulous research and documentation, key elements of which unfold within this discursive exhibition. By re-examining her oil paintings as pivotal to her well-known typographical works, the exhibition highlights her early paintings as a catalyst for her long-standing artistic and intellectual influence. Covering her prolific career from the 1960s until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the show delves into the unresolved tension between humanity and nature—a central theme in her oeuvre—bookended by visual inquiries in two concrete poems, or “typewritings” as she would call them, shaped as question marks.
Before focusing on her visual poetry, Wolf-Rehfeldt began teaching herself how to paint, with some of the earliest works like Stilleben mit Flasche (Still Life with Bottle, 1960) presenting a rather classical approach to painting the world around her. However, these studies already foreshadow a linguistic significance that followed her career: the still life, or Nature Morte, serves as a symbol of nature’s death or its imposed stillness at the hands of culture. Following these studies, she then began exploring fabric compositions, which in turn significantly impacted her abstract paintings composed of analogous shapes. In the twisting folds and jewel-toned hues of Porträt 68 (Portrait 68, 1968), she began transitioning into the realm of portraiture with newfound intensity, using the shapes to converge into the semblance of an eye.
Displayed in vitrines, fragments of her life in the German Democratic Republic provide a window into her creative resilience and the interconnected evolution of her artistic phases. A diverse array of materials—including drawings, pastels, paintings, writings, collages, mail art, diaries and notes—invite the visitors to explore the conceptual and visual developments of her broader artistic journey.
In the end something begins with us is a tribute to Wolf-Rehfeldt’s meticulous approach to art-making. Her words, “Futile as it may be in the end, I must document how little I am able to create,” capture her profound exploration of the human condition, balancing creative ambition with the limitations of her circumstances. With this modest reflection, a quote taken from the recently published manuscript, we begin again to approach her work with the same curiosity she herself possessed.
Parallel to the exhibition, the gallery is featuring Divided Planet (1970/2024), a public artwork displayed in the lightbox above the gallery entrance. In honor of her life and her contribution to the Mail Art movement, responses to the gallery’s Mail Art Open Call, inspired by the same piece, are exhibited in the gallery’s bookstore.
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, Installation view of In the end something begins with us, ChertLüdde, Berlin, 2025
Photo by Marjorie Brunet Plaza
Biography
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt (1932, Wurzen – 2024, Berlin, Germany) is a Berlin-based artist best known for her visual poetry and mail art. Despite not having a formal artistic education, she produced paintings, pastels, drawings and what she calls “typewritings”. Works on paper made on a typewriter, her typewritings are intricate studies spanning concrete poetry, linguistics, graphic design and conceptual art – innovative hybrids of language, symbols and visual form. Although in the beginning of her practice Wolf-Rehfeldt explored semiotics and concrete poetry, she began to shift her focus in later years to abstract compositions, moving from linguistic signage to language as form and matter.
During the period of her artistic production, Wolf-Rehfeldt was simultaneously engaged with a vast network of artists, known as the Mail Art Movement. Wolf-Rehfeldt and her partner Robert Rehfeldt were pioneers within the GDR of a type of artistic exchange that allowed for the uncensored circulation of art and ideas. As works of art prone to accessible distribution, Wolf-Rehfeldt’s typewritings were often included in her correspondence with other artists.
After the fall of the Berlin wall and the death of her partner, Wolf-Rehfeldt stopped making work altogether. Her newly found geographical freedom had fundamentally altered the function of making and distributing art. In recent years, a newly invigorated interest in her work had begun to emerge. Most recently, Wolf-Rehfeldt was awarded the Gerhard Altenbourg Prize 2021 and the Hannah Höch Prize 2022.
Her work has been exhibited in venues such as DAS MINSK, Potsdam; Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; MAMCO, Geneva; Kunstverein Reutlingen; Galerie Weisser Elefant; National Gallery of Arts, Tirana; Albertinum, SKD, Dresden (with David Horvitz); Goethe, Minneapolis; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Malmö Konsthall, Malmö; documenta 14, Kassel; Halle 14, Leipzig; Museum für konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt; Museum Barberini, Potsdam; Kunstsaele Berlin; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Schloss Plüschow Museum, Plüschow; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; The Weserburg Study Centre / Museum of Modern Art Bremen.
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt in her atelier in Zitherstrasse, Berlin, circa. 1978