Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) was a Swiss artist who was one of the first artists to be associated with the Art Brut or outsider art label. Adolf Wölfli was born in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. At the age of seven he was abandoned by his father. The boy remained alone with his mother for two years, before being placed in peasant families where he worked as a goatherd and farmhand. Later he became a woodcutter, then a labourer. A few years afterwards Wölfli was arrested for attempted child molestation and imprisoned for two years. On his release, he committed the offence again and in 1899 was admitted to the hospital in Waldau, near Bern, where he stayed until he died. Adolf Wölfli started to draw, write and compose music at the age of 35. His output was colossal. It included 25,000 pages strewn with graphic compositions done with crayons, but also collages, literary creations and musical scores. In his drawings, figures whose eyes are surrounded by a mask are combined with musical notes, snippets of text and brightly coloured shapes. The ornamental elements have both a decorative and a rhythmic function. His images also incorporated an idiosyncratic musical notation. This notation seemed to start as a purely decorative affair but later developed into real composition which Wölfli would play on a paper trumpet. Wölflis work has inspired many composers. Perhaps most notable the Danish composer Per Nørgård who after viewing a Wölfli exhibition in 1979 embarked on a schizoid style lasting for several years; among the works of this time are an opera on the life of Wölfli called The Divine Circus. The chamber opera Wölfli Szenen (Wölfli Scenes), which premiered in Graz, Austria, in 1981, featured music by Georg Friedrich Haas, the Austrian composer of spectral music, Gösta Neuwirth, Anton Prestele and Wolfgang Rihm. In 1987, musician and composer Graeme Revell released an LP entitled Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles: The Music of Adolf Wolfli. This audio compilation was based on the works Wölfli and incorporated digital renditions of Wölflis compositions, with additional sound effects and ambient soundscapes added to the songs, by Revell, based on the artwork surrounding Wölflis musical notations.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 14:45:00 +0000
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