miart, Milan
Generations Section – Booth C 32
31st March – 2nd April 2017

The Generations Section of miart is a section focused on the differences between past and present expressions: each booth features two galleries, that are invited to create a dialogue between two artists belonging to two different generations.

For the 2017’s edition of miart – Generations Section – ChertLüdde presented an exhibition of drawings by Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt.

Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt developed her typical typewriter graphics between 1972 and 1989, when she was living in the GDR and she became an active participant in the international Mail Art movement.

She created hundreds of original typewriter works which were often produced using carbon copy paper in order to reproduce more copies of the original sample. She then made Zincographic copies (zinc lithographs) of the motifs. She was allowed to produce a maximum of 50 copies for each motifs, due to the GDR’s regulation. The works were made in many different formats, but mainly had to be small enough to allow her to send them by post and easily distribute them through Mail Art circuits. During the years, her practice – in particular her Mail Art activity – was directed to sustain an otherwise impossible contact with the world outside the GDR.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dramatic geopolitical changes later effected by the reunification – most importantly the freedom of movement of the former citizens of the GDR – she felt her involvement was no longer “needed” and completely stopped her artistic practice.

The works presented in this edition of miart were 14 small framed typewritings from her series “Strukturblätter”, all produced in mid 80s. These works especially depict her obsessive attention to details and repetitive patterns, resulting in the creation of beautiful and delicate anthropomorphic shapes. In this particular series – which originally comprehended more then 100 works – she mostly used a specific typewriting machine for accounting and mathematics, which featured special symbols and greek letters.

The artist was in dialogue with works by Anna-Bella Papp. 

All images: Robert Glowacki and Trevor Lloyd