Bernhard Wolf

pekarna

Bernhard Wolf — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 18:57:22 +0000

46° 34´ N / 15° 38´ E
Exhibition / paintings
Pekarna, Maribor, Slovenia 1995
Curator: Vanesa Cvahte
Artists: Jörg Auzinger, Christian Bretter, Tiberius D, Gerhard Gross, Bernhard Wolf

IQ 50

Bernhard Wolf — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 18:41:04 +0000

IQ * 50
Posters in public space
100 pieces each
Graz, Austria, 1991 – 1994
Exhibition FONDhaus, Graz, Austria, 1993
Curator: Karl Grünling

TRADITION / LEIDENSCHAFT, Moscow, 1992
ZEIT / BPEMЯ, Moscow, 1993
EXTRAVAGANZ, St.Petersburg, Russia, 1994

Mythos 2000

Bernhard Wolf — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 17:00:39 +0000

Mythos 2000
steirischer herbst, Graz, Austria, 1995
art belongs to the people, Moscow, Russia, 1995
Curators: Aristarkh Chernyshev, Rostislav Jegorov
Various billboard installations in public space

Music was my first love

Bernhard Wolf — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 13:08:39 +0000

Music was my first love
Siemens art lab, Galerie Hilger, Vienna, Austria, 2004

Paintings, 120 x 120 cm, acrylic/canvas

„Bernhard Wolf beschäftigt sich wie seine Plakatprojekte seit 1993 belegen, seit Jahren mit einer bestimmten Klasse öffentlicher Zeichen, die wir Ikonen der Reklame nennen können.“
Peter Weibel in „Die Gespensterwelt der Warenwelt“, Neue Galerie, 2000.

Die Serie „Music was my first love“ wendet sich einer eher privaten Klasse von Zeichen zu, die – ähnlich wie Logosysteme aus Reklame und Politik – verläßlich im allgemeinen Bewusstsein verankert sind. Es handelt sich um Covers von Langspielplatten, die zu vertrauten visuellen Codes in der Popkultur geworden sind. Die präsentierte Auswahl stellt eine Schnittmenge aus persönlichen Leidenschaften und stilbildenden Produktionen aus der kollektiven Mythenkiste von 1950 bis zu Aktuellem dar.

Elvis Presley – Heartbreak Hotel (1956). Elvis erste Platte, Rock´n Roll was born.

Beatles – Rubber Soul (1965). Die Beatles auf dem Scheideweg von der Boygroup zu den Musikpionieren von „Sergeant Pepper“ und dem „White Album“

Sex Pistols – Never mind the bollocks (1977). Punk was born.

Abba – Arrival (1977). Das Poppendant zur parallelen Punkexplosion. Diese Platte infiszierte den Autor erstmals mit dem Popvirus im zarten Alter von 12 und war elektrisierender Vorbote aller kommenden Leidenschaften.

The Clash – London Calling (1979). Das zentrale Meisterwerk des Punk, fast ein Vierteljahrhundert nach der ersten Elvis LP erobert die Gitarre neue Einsatzbereiche (siehe auch Cover Paraphrase auf das Elvis Cover).

Public Image limited – Album (1985). Soloprojekt des Sex Pistols Sängers John Lydon aka Jonny Rotten. Ein monolithischer Wurf im New Wave Umfeld.

Big Black – Songs about fucking (1987). Bahnbrechende Produktion der Kultfigur Steve Albini. Kompromisslose, bis dahin nicht vernommene Gitarrensounds.

Sonic Youth – Dirty (1992). Die Gitarrenwände der vier New Yorker stehen exemplarisch für laut krachende Schönheit, oder was Mitte der 80er bis Mitte der 90er darunter zu verstehen war.

Melvins – Houdini (1993). Der Meilenstein aus der Abteilung Härte mit Grips. Die Band die Nirvana das Gitarrespielen beigebracht hat. An Wucht und Dichte kaum zu überbietendes Meisterwerk.

Parad Ansamblej (1975). Persönliche Referenz an die goldenen 70er in der Sowjetunion, die mindestens so bunt ausgefallen sind wie im Westen.

Peaches – The teaches of Peaches (2001). Wie es so schön hieß – „Elektroclashsexgenderrock“. Die richtige Frischzellenkur zur rechten Zeit für eine erlahmte Dancefloorszene.

Soundsilo – same (2004). Exzellente Produktion des besten Grazer DJ Kollektivs. Ein Knicks vor der umtriebigen Szene an der Mur und ihrer erfolgreichen Verabschiedung vom provinziellen Gestus.

Peter Weibel englisch

Bernhard Wolf — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 18:47:05 +0000

The world of ghosts of the world of commodities
Peter Weibel
Exhibition „Leibstandarte Realität“, Bernhard Wolf, Neue Galerie Graz, 2000

As evidenced by his poster projects since 1993, Bernhard Wolf has for many years been dealing with a certain category of public signs which we may refer to as icons of advertising. In his graphical treatment of the mascots which constitute the myths of everyday life he unmasks ideological and communicative strategies not only of the world of commodities, but also of politics as commonplaces. This series of twenty-seven motifs in the same format (110×85 cm) and technique (acrylic on canvas) is the visual extraction of those standardised figures into which political allegories degenerate in the mass media age. These characters of public life, familiar to many from childhood on, from Helmi (road safety mascot) to Sparefroh (“thrifty” mascot of the Erste Bank) and Amanda Klachl (newspaper cartoon figure), do not correspond to real people, but rather exist only virtually, although their ideological function is real. In computer lingo we would call them avatars of public consciousness.
After the three classical sign categories, the icon, index and symbol, today sees the reign of a new class of sign which relates to the world of commodities – logos. As we know, the index is a mode in which the sign is physically connected to the object to which it refers, e.g. smoke is a sign of fire. In the iconic mode, there is a visual similarity between the sign and the object. In the symbolic mode, the relationship between signs and what they signify is arbitrary, such that the meaning may only be established by means of social conventions and coding. The semantic relationship between the logo and its commodity is created by coded arbitrariness. A logo can impress any meaning on an object, e.g. a cigarette may stand for freedom. The standardised coding of the industrial production of meaning which prevails in the world of commodities owes its success above all to that soft continuum of infantile role models such as the Haribo goldbear or the political role model such as Herr Strudl in the Kronen-Zeitung newspaper. The norms and codes of a standardised reality which is under the dictates of a ruling class are constructed above all by these seemingly soft signs. The foundations for this amalgamation of media, politics and the world of commodities which adults can no longer keep apart and unchain are laid in our early-childhood habituation to the world of commodities as the real world, which is the explicit aim of this anthropomorphisation of commodities and their ideological functions.

Thrift is anthropomorphised as the little Sparefroh man, just as one company’s products are anthropomorphised as the Michelin Man. Cleanliness is anthropomorphised as Mr. Clean, just as another company’s product is by the Cosy Tiger. Toilet paper, household cleaner, and human traits are all forced into line, put to the service of consumption. That is the purpose of anthropomorphising commodities: to give the commodity itself the human character which it lacks. Marx referred to this as commodity fetishism. The little Maresi girl and the Bic man are therefore fetishes. They give the appearance of being friendly, nice, welcoming and optimistic. In reality, they bewitch our minds and make us slaves of the world of commodities. The visual icons of everyday life which Wolf serves up to us are the soft chains with which politicians and the consumer industry seek to chain us to the reality which they construct.
Unlike American pop art, that affirmatively aestheticises the signs of the world of commodities and thus celebrates consumption, Wolf follows a critical tradition of European pop art that asks of logo culture the classical question “What makes it so appealing?”, thus analysing and criticising consumer culture. Wolf shows us the ghosts of the world of commodities, the logos which colonise the human body as an occupying power today, from underpants to coats, from shoes to soup cans (Campbell). Although they seem to come over as friendly, the popular figures which marry human traits with the characteristic of commodities, this is in fact what makes them so dangerous, amounting in reality to an “unfriendly take-over” of the human being by the world of commodities. Wolf shows us the horror which lies hidden behind the infantile sign systems of consumer culture, thus revealing the infantilism of consumer culture, “infantile society” (Elfriede Jelinek).

Peter Weibel, director of ZKM / Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

Leibstandarte Realität

Bernhard Wolf — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 18:40:08 +0000

Leibstandarte Realität / Leibstandarte Reality,
Neue Galerie Graz, Austria, 2000
Curator: Peter Weibel (AT)
27 paintings, acrylic/canvas, 120 x 70 cm

Text:
Peter Weibel / Die Gespensterwelt der Warenwelt

Peter Weibel / The world of ghosts of the world of commodities

Geschmackm im Überschall

Bernhard Wolf — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 17:42:08 +0000

Geschmack im Überschall / Taste at supersonics,
Postgarage Graz, Austria, 2001

12 pieces, acrylic/canvas, 130 × 130 cm
Taste in supersonics is based on a representative survey of colour perception in the German-speaking world. Respondents were asked which colours they associate with certain terms. The pictorial tableaux correspond to the percentage distribution of colours associated with the terms:

cheapness, liveliness, coolness, lightness, loneliness, speed, modernity, aromaticness, sweetness, passion, stupidity, toxicity, introversion, imagination

parallelinfo russ

Bernhard Wolf — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 18:12:43 +0000

parallelinfo – direct news channel Russia/USA
Live news about everyday culture, art and political opposition, created during two stays in the East and West, 2000–2001

Webblog: http://parallelinfo.mur.at
Webdesign: Gernot Tscherteu/Reinhard Urban

Book: edition selene, Vienna, 2001
ISBN: 3-85266-175-7

Exhibition: center for contemporary art
Graz, Austria, 2001
Curated by Margarete Makovec and Anton Lederer

parallelinfo usa

Bernhard Wolf — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 17:45:45 +0000

textbildmixx

Bernhard Wolf — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 16:59:29 +0000

TEXTBILDMIXX. 40 artists/40 sentences/40 locations
steirischer herbst, Institut für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Steiermark, Literaturhaus Graz, Austria, 2009

Curators: Agnes Altziebler, Werner Fenz, Evelyn Kraus, Birgit Kulterer (all AT)
Artists: Baodo, Wolfgang Becksteiner, Helwig Brunner, Günther Eichberger, Manfred Erjautz, Olga Flor, Sonja Gangl, Petra Ganglbauer, Peter Glaser, G.R.A.M., Mathias Grilj, Karl Grünling, Michael Gumhold, Sonja Harter, Wilhelm Hengstler, Klub Zwei, Karin Lernbeiss, Flora Neuwirth, Christian Marczik, Christoph Perl, Georg Petz, Birgit Pölzl, Wolfgang Pollanz, Werner Reiterer, Angelika Reitzer, Oliver Ressler, Sophie Reyer, Valentin Ruhry, Werner Schandor, Irmi Schaumberger, Stefan Schmitzer, Helmut Schranz, Clemens Setz, Dieter Sperl, Andrea Stift, Lea Titz, Andreas Unterweger, Markus Wilfling, Zweintopf (all AT)