Petrus Wandrey

Petrus Wandrey (born March 8, 1939 in Dresden ; † November 5, 2012 in Hamburg ; actually Ulrich Carl Peter Wandrey ) was a German artist who lived and worked in Hamburg. His work initially had a clearly surrealistic reference, but was also rooted in Pop Art .

Wandrey was fascinated by science and technology. These subject areas appear very often in his work, which is characterized by the simplicity and brilliance of digital image culture. With the handover of his panel painting “Science And Beyond” to Fordham University , New York, in 1978 he brought the digitalism movement into being. The vertical and horizontal alignment of pixels , the smallest, given area in the form of a square, result in a computer-typical silhouette, the zig-zag contours of which are one of the hallmarks of the multifaceted and nuanced representation of his work. Also striking are the numerous works in which computer scrap or specially produced hardware are used as design elements.

Circuit Woman (1990)

Life

Early years

Wandrey spent his early childhood on the Rennersdorf manor of his grandparents near Dresden. He grew up with his sisters Bettina (1938–2006) and Erdmute (* 1942) with his mother Elisabeth Ulrike Ingeborg Wandrey geb. Clauss (1914-1970). The father, Carl-Heinz Wandrey (1908–1990), was serving as naval chief officer on the battleship " Tirpitz ". In 1945, after the expropriation by German communists, the family fled to Obersiemau , Coburg district, and finally to Hamburg in 1947, where Petrus Wandrey was first sent to the Pestalozzi Foundation in Hamburg and then to the North Sea boarding school in Sankt Peter-Ording. From the end of the war, the father was under English command as a senior medical officer at the German mine clearance service GMSA in Hamburg. From 1948 to 1974 he was the managing director of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Hamburg, developed and organized the emergency medical service for the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 1973 received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon. Despite constant punishments, Petrus Wandrey illustrated almost all exercise books and blotters with drawings in addition to the mathematical and textual teaching work during the entire school period. Arrest in the room and draconian punishment by his father let the virtues of rebellion and disobedience mature in him to such an extent that he was sentenced to punishments on record.

After three years of boarding school training, he attended various grammar schools in Hamburg, in order to end the "barracks" school stress after the 11th grade and, under pressure from his father, start a training path to study architecture. He then studied from 1960 to 1963 at the master school for fashion, craft art school for textiles, advertising and graphics of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (Department Design) and from 1963 to 1968 at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HFBK). He was fascinated by surrealism , the Dada movement and pop art . In 1969 he was appointed by producer Peter Märthesheimer to the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln to take over the production design for Klaus Lemke's legendary television film “Brandstifter”, which thematizes the origins of the Red Army Fraction RAF.

His creative phases included painting , sculpture , installation , graphics , object art and furniture, jewelry and textile design . First he worked as a designer and illustrator for countless record covers in the areas of classical music, jazz and rock, then designed front pages for the magazines Der Spiegel and Capital , illustrations for the magazines Playboy , stern , TransAtlantik and the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , and finally film posters ( Chinese Roulette and Despair - A Journey into Light ) for Rainer Werner Fassbinder , posters for rock stars, etc. Wandrey financed free artistic work with the proceeds from these commissioned works.

In 1975 he traveled to Portlligat to see his idol Salvador Dalí , to whom he presented his work “Venus' Wind” (1973) as a birthday present. Dalí made Wandrey's “Venus” a permanent fixture in the Mae West Room of the Teatre-Museo Dalí , but warned him that Surrealism was an invention of Dalí's generation and that Wandrey should seek and find a new style for his time.

1974–1983: birth of digitalism

Wandrey found the desired design language almost by accident. He was inspired u. a. through the display characteristics of the first computer games from the consumer electronics company Atari as well as through the binary cosmogram of the Arecibo message with the most important information about life on earth and the position of our planet in the solar system, which was broadcast in 1974. Wandrey used the design options of raster and pixel graphics to realize his sculptures and pictures in mostly analog technology. The fascination with Pop Art, Surrealism, the indefinable Dada movement and the formal language of the budding digital era offered him the beginning of an artistic innovation and an examination of the language of the logic of binary images. "The way of seeing of the dawning computer age [was] elevated to a design principle, a pixel as the smallest screen unit as a structuring means."

In 1978 Wandrey proclaimed his "digitalism" in New York with the picture "Science And Beyond" (1978), and since then he has explored extensive possibilities of "digitalistic" image design. According to Wandrey, the digital design language does not allow any national or continental peculiarities or recognition possibilities to dominate. It is the first image design option that appears globally understandable and is accepted by all people of all nations.

The aesthetic evaluation of hardware and its incorporation into artistic representations led him to numerous experiments. To refine them, Wandrey explored the materiality of high-tech tools and the aesthetic appeal of electronic components such as circuit boards , laser discs , light-emitting diodes , microchips , cable bundles, heat sinks and plotter prints used in chip production . The design principle of his digital image culture also includes components removed from electronic waste, for example in the installation “Personal Identity” (1994) and the objects “Angel of Recycling” 1–3 (1992–1996). The computer was literally gutted to construct provocative sculptures and assemblages, and to unite seemingly contradicting elements. Wandrey called for "an alliance of art and technology" and described his digitalism, proclaimed in 1978, as a style of visual art that makes use of digital display characteristics and is thus the formal language of the digital techno era. "Seldom has an artist characterized his style and design technique as accurately as the digitalist Petrus Wandrey, who lives in Hamburg."

“By deliberately violating the instructions for use by Wandrey , the electronic parts are placed in a new, sometimes astonishing, context. Through the artist's intervention, they are simultaneously demystified and provided with fresh mysteries . "

As a reference to the Renaissance artists, who were active in designing from painting, graphics, sculpture and architecture to jewelry and everyday objects, Wandrey designed an extensive program: the architectural model "Casa digital" for a skyscraper, "Computer Man" (1979) makes the silhouette of a human figure appear as a pictogram. In the 80s, a collection of furniture and room textiles with decorations from the world of computer forms was realized. The installation “Polart Room” (1980) is equipped with picture and furniture objects from 10x enlargements of the picture cassette elements of the SX-70 camera system of the Polaroid Corporation.

1984-1993

For the technical implementation of his projects, Wandrey temporarily worked with the help of physicists, technology producers and craft businesses. In 1983 the monumental relief "Extraterrestrial Dance" (1983) was made from polispectrally colored stainless steel. Through the contact with the Norderstedt circuit board manufacturer Heidemarie Heger, Heger GmbH, the foundation stone was laid in 1985 for various projects with circuit boards as the basis, which were specially produced for this purpose and used as design elements in many plants. Prof. Dieter Kind , from 1975 to 1995 President of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig, helped Wandrey to get the decommissioned elements of the "H 1" hydrogen mason atomic clock , which he processed into the sculpture "Atomic Time Guardian" (1988). In 1989, Wandrey got access to large-format plotter prints from Philips RHW, representations of microchips for processor production, which he used in numerous picture compositions. Also, dual in-line package (DIP), wafer , cable , etc. were mounted in many works on stainless steel sheet metal or wood surfaces. For example, in the works “Jugglers” -Triptychon (1989) and “Digitalistic Lesson” (1989) this hardware was rigorously robbed of its technological importance and placed in a purely pictorial context. In "Orbiter" 1–4 (1990) NASA recordings of Mars were used, whose segmented format specification he supplemented with printed circuit boards and laser discs. Wandrey discovered the heat sink at Fischer Elektronik in 1992, the shape of which he found bizarre and exciting. He used this aesthetic potential as an assemblage and collage element in image, sculpture and object art designs such as the sculptures "Interface" 1–10 (1992).

“On the one hand, there are the chips and circuit boards as real shapes, with which Wandrey plays and composes. On the other hand, for him they mean hieroglyphics of a mysterious, surreal-mystical world. His art wanders between the worlds, the real world of form and the surreal world of broadcast and message. "

In 1985 the curator David Galloway showed the furniture "Chip-Case" and "Chip-Table" from the "Casa Digitale" concept by Wandrey in the "Artware" exhibition at the CCH in Hamburg. In the same year computer graphics were created on the Quantel Paintbox at VAP (Video-Audio-Print), a computer studio of his friend Richard Kunicki. With the help of the publicist and exhibition organizer Andreas Grosz, the digitalism exhibition with pictures, sculptures and objects by Petrus Wandrey was realized in the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum in 1990 , for which the catalog “Digitalism” was published. Grosz had already initiated numerous projects on the subjects of corporate culture , new media, design and architecture. As part of the exhibition, there was a series of lectures and discussions on the subject of “Culture and Technology - Aesthetics in Transition”, with contributions from Professors Ulrich Seiffert , Mihai Nadin , Bernd Rebe , Bazon Brock and Walther Christoph Zimmerli . Since 1991 Wandrey lived with his partner, the anesthesiologist Ute Janssen (* 1952), whom he married in 2010. In 1992 Wandrey traveled to Antibes, met the lawyer and entrepreneur Dr. Harald Falckenberg and inspired him to build up an art collection. Since then, numerous works by Wandrey have been included in the Falckenberg Collection .

Since 1994

In 1995 Hans Mayer showed an extensive solo exhibition of Wandrey's work in his commercially oriented gallery in Düsseldorf. It met with unexpectedly great interest, especially among young audiences, and was then extended twice. Aesthetics professor Bazon Brock gave the opening speech and wrote a contribution for SPIEGEL-special about Wandrey's “digitalistic” experiments.

“For him, it's [...] not about producing images with the computer. Wandrey does not pretend to want to make art with software, as a host of naive technology believers unfortunately claim. If the medium alone is the message - holy McLuhan - then the message cannot be “art”, but simply the medium again: Graphic-Computer-In-Action. [...] Or, with Wandrey: Hardware has to become heartware. "

1999 "Retrospective Petrus Wandrey" in the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig. David Galloway took over the tasks of curator, he is also the editor of the extensive catalog for the exhibition, which is published by Oktagon-Verlag Cologne.

Major work groups

Super icons - Aphrodite and Mona Lisa

Wandrey counted the icon of antiquity, the Aphrodite statue Venus de Milo , and the icon of the Renaissance, the world-famous masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci, the Mona Lisa, among the super icons of the visual arts . He transformed these “fuel rods of cultural history” with the means and possibilities of his design principles. Pictures, reliefs and sculptures were the results. With his artist friend Volker Hildebrandt he influenced David Galloway to publish the edition "Mona 2000". His first metamorphoses of Venus were made in 1973.

“In“ Mona Lisa: Homage to Leonardo da Vinci ”(1975), Wandrey combined the most famous features of the picture - the face and the hands placed on top of each other - to create a surrealistic reinterpretation. In the spirit of the new media, a “Mona Digitalis” (1988) made of circuit boards and dot matrix printing as well as a “Cultware” series (1991) on plots for chip production were created. In the progression of media and means, the artist fulfilled the Goethic dictum, which he liked to quote: “One should reinterpret the past, rethink it.” […] Nothing in Wandrey's oeuvre can, however, be compared with his numerous paraphrases of Venus de Milo as the incarnation of feminine beauty and classic proportions. "

money

Wandrey often had financial worries and so the subject of money is clearly present in his work. For various motifs, collaged US dollar bills appeared as textual statements and images, for example “Cash-Man” (1995) and “Cash-Woman” (1995). In “Rich and Poor Company” (1998), “Riches Have Wings” (1998) and “Ex-Rich-Credit-Side” (1998), text elements are cut out of the wooden picture surfaces with which the 1 US dollar bills mounted on it correspond . The Mona Lisa portraits “Mona Money” (1998), “Victory-Sexy-Euro” (1999), “Money Has No Smell” (2006) were also created in connection with the symbolism of money. A medicinal herb with flowers in the form of US dollar bills is “Placebo, In God We Trust” (2008).

In “Mona Money” (1998), Wandrey ironically demonstrated his ability to unite divergent positions by combining the body of “ La Gioconda ” with the head of George Washington , portrayed by Gilbert Stuart . It is the portrait that is depicted on the US dollar bill "and must therefore be regarded as the most reproduced image in art history."

“As early as 1550, Giorgio Vasari wrote about the lady's“ so lovely smile ”. Other observers have seen something flirtatious, mischievous, erotic or even threatening here. Her "secret" is ascribed to pregnancy, tooth decay and even transvestism . For the pressed lips of George Washington, on the other hand, there is a historically guaranteed trigger: shortly before he was sitting as a model for the portrait, all of the general's teeth were pulled and so he was now struggling with wooden teeth. In “Mona Money”, Wandrey lifts the model's strict corners of the mouth and gives him the touch of a “lovely smile”. The merging of two types of icons takes on a mischievous aspect. "

Angel

Balance of Power (1992)

Wandrey was convinced that the angel phenomenon is one of the first surrealist inventions of mankind in almost all early cultures and has been cultivated to date as a symbol of hope in the role of mediator for a supra-intelligence of various religions, also invented by mankind. Wandrey admired the unsurpassable beauty and noble bearing of winged beings in Renaissance painting, for example "Annunciation to Mary" by Leonardo da Vinci , as did the angel portraits of ancient Greece and ancient Egypt . In 1992 his first Engel work was created as a multi-part wall installation “Balance of Power” for the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig. This angel representation has a body made of polished stainless steel, wings made of polymethyl methacrylate (acrylic glass) and the halo is recognizable with an optical disc made of silicon and its spectral color reflection.

A series of 25 “winged” works in Braunschweig Cathedral followed in 1993 under the exhibition title “Angels for Europe” and in 2000 the exhibition “Angel Age” in Hamburg's main church Sankt Katharinen . The sculpture "Atomic-Time-Guardian" (1988) should be named as a guardian angel or protector of atomic time. About his “Angels for Europe” exhibition in Brunswick Cathedral , Petrus Wandrey wrote: “Man's desire for supernatural help will be part of his intellect in all epochs. In times of uncertainty and global threat, the irrational is booming. If our time ensures that angels are thought and talked about, man will recognize, understand and perhaps tread a peaceful path of his evolution. "

Masks

The characteristic contouring of the computer images, the jagged line, is reminiscent of the shape of the Mayas and Aztecs. The masks produced by Wandrey also fit into this context. Starting with a poster design in 1967 for LiLaLe , the artist festival at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, in which the photo of a woman's face was manipulated in such a way that it was manipulated in such a way that it became mysterious and mask-like and worked like an aphrodisiac .

In 1979 "Software Mask" followed, in which sound and image carriers were processed, as well as objet trouvé masks made from gilded picture frames. For “Regeneration 1”, Wandrey processed an ancient Egyptian mask in 1995, which he supplemented with circuit boards, chips and heat sinks. David Galloway described this as a startling elegance and ceremonial aura of an improbable amalgamation of cultures, eras and materials, so that even works like “Mrs. Nerd "and" Mr. Nerd ”(1995), which consist entirely of electronic components, suggest something ancient, even Aztec. The works “Queen Cool” and “King Cool” (2007) radiate utopian beauty, sculptures in small editions made of stainless steel, heat sinks and specially designed circuit boards. In addition to sculptures and reliefs, Wandrey's pen creates numerous graphics and paintings on the subject of masks. "Even his own artist logo is both a mask and a self-portrait."

Animals and flowers

Wandrey has created a new, provocative way of being for the "Roaring Deer", home icon in many German living rooms and pubs of the philistine bourgeoisie, "Oh My Deer" (1986). This mass product of the kitsch industry is now getting an existence in the digital age. The large-format relief shows the nationally revered cultural icon as a “cyber deer” made of specially designed printed circuit boards with an eye made of flashing light-emitting diodes in an area of ​​cable bushes on a copper background. Another depiction of a deer is entitled with the same salutation, “My Favorite”, a sculpture made of circuit boards and stainless steel, “My Deer” (1986). Over a period of several years the artist collected over 200 advertising icons, which exclusively depict animals, from brochures and newspapers, in order to process them in an extensive series of images in digitalistic language, the “Propagandimals” series (2007). The oil painting “Warning Decadence” (1990) can be assigned to his political and socially critical works . The picture shows a black cat with eyes that are represented by warning signs of atomic radiation. The cat stands on a liquid gold bar and is provided with an aggressive, radiant aura. The Multiples Hybrid-Flowers were created from 1994 to 2000, "Hybrid-Rose" (1994), "Hybrid-Lily" (1995), "Hybrid-Tulip" (1996), "Hybrid-Sunflower" (1998) and "Hybrid- Lotus "(2000).

“Humor runs like a leitmotif through all of Petrus Wandrey's works. The playful handling of topics, materials, art quotations and even titles can be seen as part of his surrealistic foundation. In addition, there is a humanistic sense of comedy and word games. The artist's serenity is perhaps most directly experienced in a group of works with animal and floral motifs. In this “jeux d'esprit” he wants to show “the courage to be kitsch”, but at the same time use lovely, domestic subjects to overcome the inhibitions that the viewer of new media art often feels. "

Cyborg - human

In Wandrey's oeuvre, the figure of the human being in his “ beautiful new world ” is recognizable. Adam and Eve "Fall Of Man" (1991) are in the Vatican loggias . They are designed from electronic elements and yet they appear naked, mounted on large-format, colored copperplate engravings ( Giovanni Volpato (1733–1803) and Johann Ottaviani), which show the magnificently designed wall decorations of the loggias of the Vatican . Numerous works allow the human figure to be interpreted as a cyborg or as a hybrid of a virtual and natural world as well as addicts and totally dependent on a technological luxury, for example in the monumental, four-part work " Chronokrat " 1–4 (1988). Wandrey designed the icon of horror and horror, despair and fear of apocalyptic world events, discord and war, the world-famous picture " The Scream " (1910) by Edvard Munch to various interpretations for the digital society, "Echo" ( 1989). In Wandrey's work, humans also appear as erotic beings, for example in the triptych “ New Age ” (1978–1979) in which the subject matter is the foundation of the content. The female torso " Heavy-Petting " (1993) is cleverly appetizing . The many portraits of celebrities and friends of the artist should also be included in the representation of people.

The portrait of a wired person is created in the more than two meter high sculpture "Astronaut" (1991) made of circuit boards, optical discs and stainless steel, reminiscent of heroic armor, while it is in "Personal Identity" (1994) and "Narcissus “(1994) but man in his everyday environment - standing in front of a mirror, sitting in front of a table - who is wired and networked up to the hair of the two figures, replaced by a mess of cables. In the former, it is the classic motif of self-reflection, the search for one's own self: the cyborg sits in front of a screen where colorful masks in all variants of "his" own face are constantly peeling off.

“Here he is now fulfilling Vilém Flusser's image of the new city as a“ mask rental company ”(...) Wandrey has this vision, with its mixture of hope and horror, in a monumental, interconnected image sequence entitled“ Virtual Contact ”(1994), in ten life-size male and ten female torsos can be networked with each other through interfaces on the brain, buttocks, genitals or heart. [...] This work alone would be sufficient proof that even 20 years after his "digitalism" manifesto, the artist was still looking for ways to process technical progress aesthetically and philosophically. "

dancer

Wandrey's “dancers” reflect his love for music and therefore have strong autobiographical traits. At the age of 15 he was a regular customer of the Hamburg jazz club “Barrett” as a fan of the jazz vibraphonist Wolfgang Schlüter from the Michael Naura quintet . In 1958 Wandrey experimented as a vibraphonist with a specially founded modern jazz combo. In the 1960s, Wandrey spent countless nights in beat clubs such as " Top Ten Club " and " Star Club "; In the 1970s he was fascinated by punk rock , which inspired him to create images and objects.

Through a friend he got to know the beauty of classical and modern ballet. He admired the strict technique that produced light, almost effortless sequences of movements that were abruptly interrupted by the apparent "freezing" of some positions. These works, reminiscent of dancers under the stroboscope, "Dancer" 1–4 (1986), were inspired by his participation in light shows in various beat clubs. "Circuit-Dancer" 1–4 was created in 1986 from specially produced circuit boards, mounted on figural stainless steel silhouettes, and later, in addition to many porcelain objects for the Staatliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Meissen GmbH, the small sculptures "Techno-Dancer" 1–2 (2002) .

This group of works concentrates for the most part on the graceful positions of classical ballet, with the exception of an acrylic painting with printed circuit boards - "Digital Kid" (1986) - and a sequence of twelve works on handmade paper - "Brave New Dancer" (1987) - the Referring to the world of disco. The "Dream Dancer" series (1985) is one of the earliest of these works. Here, colored prints from an old catalog for curtains and trimmings are used as a background for the zigzag-contoured dancers borrowed from the pixel resolution of a screen, who “do not let themselves be disturbed by the somewhat dusty decor. Rather, the artist creates a harmonization of apparently dissonant visual languages ​​that is typical for him. The ballet stars later become independent, appearing in paintings and sculptures as well as in reliefs, which are playfully complemented with 'dancing' light emitting diodes. "

On the initiative of the Bad Salzdetfurth Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth, Wandrey's sculpture “EURO-DANCER”, 2003, cut-out corten steel, cut-out stainless steel, on a concrete pedestal has been on the “Cycle Path to Art”, section ›Kunst beWEGt‹ with the dimensions 340 × 100 × 120 cm.

Iconoclasm

As early as 1973, two tables were created, each with axes, "Hatchet-Table" (1977) and "Saw-Table" (1977), with saws as table legs. A famous punk symbol is shown in “Blade-Table” (1980), in which two greatly enlarged razor blades made of polished stainless steel act as a foot and table top. A new subject opened up for Wandrey in the mid-1990s . Motifs arise that deal with the topic of the simplest possible representation, an argument about the image itself . It is the picture without any content with symbolic references to the destruction by scissors, saws, knives, axes and hatchets, which point to the damage, even the destruction of the traditional picture and implemented by Wandrey in aluminum reliefs, plots, paintings and woodwork become. The work on “Destruction” is continued with sawed-up picture frames of classicism in digitalistic image construction with several relief groups such as “Misfit” 1–5 (2003) or “Flash-Back” 1–2 (2006). In the picture series “Cut On Dotted Line” (1996), lines and scissors complement the new visual repertoire, strikethroughs cancel pictures symbolically and thus show surprisingly new variations of the picture statements. Handprints “stain” the surface of canvas or paper, but at the same time are reminiscent of the proud handprints that can be found in the cave paintings of prehistoric artists.

His other forms of representation of a literally overridden flow of information also include “Black Right Hand Out” (1996), in which the aluminum relief is mounted as a gigantic hand directly on a gilded decorative frame from the 19th century, “Black Sign Off” ( 1996), where an exquisite frame from the 18th century is crossed out and thus quasi devalued, “Blue Icon” 1–2 (1995) in which the bare canvas is rendered unusable by an aluminum cross and finally “Black Hook” (1995 ), in which the picture area is simply ticked off.

“Wandrey's iconoclasm also drew his attention to the symbolism of signs in advertisements, where, for example, stylized scissors tell readers that they should cut out a coupon along a dashed line. The artist collected these and similar visual signals, which can also be viewed as an invitation to “destroy” a sheet. Such considerations and experiments ultimately led to the “Fire!” (1998) ensemble, which was created from the charred remains of an information stand from “Documenta 9” and a console table and chair from a burnt-out Hamburg junk shop. Complemented by digitized flames, this dramatic three-part work illustrates the fragile line that may separate creativity and destruction. "

politics

The confrontation with political reality led Wandrey to work in very different ways. He experienced contempt for National Socialism at an early age from his maternal grandmother, who had to endure severe suffering due to her publicly known antipathy towards the NSDAP . The expulsion by the German Communists ( KPD ) in 1945 drove the family into total misery and strengthened hopes for a democratic way of life and government. The artist confronted the cruelty of the Holocaust through films that were discussed in the classroom of his school education. The extreme horror of this experience later prompted him to create the subject with unsurpassable clarity with the picture "Holocaust" (1976), it shows a golden crucified man , attached to a blood-red swastika .

The painting “Warning War” (1995) shows a torso clad in military camouflage fabric, from whose neck, arm and leg stumps fountains of blood spurt with dramatic energy. The motif of a man of suffering is designed in a large-format work based on the world-famous photo of a torture scene from November 4, 2003 in the picture “ Ecce Homo ” (2004–2006) in a highly accusatory way. Here the “hooded man”, tortured by the US military in Abu Ghuraib during the Iraq war, stands in front of a Christian cross that appears in the colors, stripes and stars of the US flag.

The full-length “Hero Portrait” (2004), produced as a screen print on canvas, is of great importance to Wandrey and shows the Hitler assassin Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in military uniform with angel wings. There are numerous themes of war, greed, etc. to be found in Wandrey's oeuvre. His stance becomes clear in the demand that the “artists” are also obliged to wage an intellectual struggle against political grievances and religious fanaticism .

The theme of our throwaway society's increasingly creeping waste addiction is manifested in the sculpture “Recycler” (2009). The theme of greed is shown in the large-format screen print on canvas "Greed Kills" (2008), in front of an oversized " Golden Calf " is a figure consisting of two machine guns and a skull , whose forehead bears the logo of the overpowering, unscrupulous "private army" of the USA, the "security company" " Blackwater Worldwide " is marked. His enthusiasm and skepticism towards the charismatically proclaimed vision of US President Barack Obama can be seen in the diptych “Evergreen Evergrey - ¥ € $ We Can - ¥ € $ We Pay” (2009). Here Wandrey's views on speculation about solutions and horror news about global financial crashes, gigantic losses in value and the historical financial crisis from 2007 are brought to the point or banished to the pixels .

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

• Berlin, Zitadelle Spandau , Bastion Kronprinz, DIGITALISM ART - the ingenious world of Petrus Wandrey , 2014
• Verden / Aller, DIGITALISMUS-PETRUS WANDREY, Galerie Sabatier, 2006
• Bodenburg, DIGITAL-GENIAL-DIGITALISM, DIGI-ART-SHOW, art building Schlosshof Bodenburg, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth e. V., 2004
• Cologne, PETRUS WANDREY - Meissen porcelain for the digital era, gallery in the Meissen house, 2002
• Hamburg, ANGEL AGE, main church St. Katharinen, 2000
• Regensburg, COOL-COOL, Lindinger + Schmid Gallery, 1999
• Bremen, DIGITALISM, University of Bremen - LFM, 1999
• Leipzig, PETRUS WANDREY - RETROSPEKTIVE, Museum of Fine Arts, 1999
• Hamburg, Petrus Wandrey. Pictures - Sculptures - Objects, Dresdner Bank AG, 1998
• Düsseldorf, DIGITALISM - PETRUS WANDREY, Galerie Hans Mayer, 1995
• Braunschweig, ANGELS FOR EUROPE, Braunschweig Cathedral, 1994
• Hamburg, DIGITALISM, Deutsche Aerospace - Airbus - GmbH, 1992
• Hanover, DIGITALISM, Lower Saxony pavilion, Hanover industrial fair, 1991
• Braunschweig, DIGITALISM - PETRUS WANDREY, Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, 1990
• Frankfurt a. M., DIGITALISM, Dresdner Bank AG - Electronic Banking Center, 1989
• Hamburg, DIGITALISMUS, Electrum - The Museum of Electricity, 1986
• Berlin, PICTURES AND OBJECTS, Internationale Funkausstellung, 1983
• New York, Proclamation of DIGITALISM with the image SCIENCE AND BEYOND, Institute of Scientific Humanism at Fordham University, 1978

Group exhibitions (selection)

• Bodenburg, "... ONE MOMENT, PLEASE!" - PLEASE CAST AN EYE, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth e. V., 2008
• Chicago, LIFE AS A LEGEND: MARILYN MONROE, Chicago Cultural Center, 2008
• Bodenburg, TRZEBA MIEC NOSA - HAVE A GOOD NOSE, Art Association Bad Salzdetfurth e. V., 2008
• Quarnstedt / Gartow, POLITICS, Westwendischer Kunstverein e. V., 2008
• Vienna, Munich, Kiel, “True Romance - Allegories of Love from the Renaissance to Today”, Vienna, Kunsthalle Wien, October 5, 2007 to February 3, 2008, Munich, Museum Villa Stuck, February 21 to May 18, 2008, Kiel, Kunsthalle zu Kiel of the Christian Albrechts University. May 31 to September 9, 2008
• Lüdenscheid, "GOOD + EVIL / Politics, Art, Society", Städtische Galerie Lüdenscheid, 25 November 2006 to 18 February 2007
• Bodenburg, LEND ME YOUR EAR, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth e. V., 2006
• Bodenburg, LA MAIN DANS LA MAIN, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth e. V., 2005
• Halle, THE MOMENT IS ETERNITY, Kunsthalle e. V., 2003
• Leipzig, TO THE POINT - porcelain for Meissen, Grassi Museum, 2000
• Gladbeck, COMPUTERKUNST '98, Wiesenbusch-Gladbeck Innovation Center, 1998
• Leverkusen, GLOBAL FUN, Museum Morsbroich, 1998
• Bodenburg, FROM SCARAB TO NEW BEETLE, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth e. V., 1999
• Hanover, AUGENLUST, Kunsthaus Hanover, 1998
• Bodenburg, EUROPE CLIMB THE BULL, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth e. V., 1998
• Berlin, Artforum-Berlin '97, Lutz Teutloff Gallery, 1997
• Bonn, ARTIST FOR NATURE, Bundeskunsthalle, 1996
• Regensburg, A HOUSE FULL OF HOUSES, Lindinger + Schmid Gallery, 1996
• Chicago, ART-Chicago, Galerie Hans Mayer GmbH, 1996
• Basel, ART-Basel '96, Galerie Hans Mayer GmbH, 1996
• Hagen, TORSO, Galerie M. Schlieper, 1996
• Frankfurt a. M., ART-Frankfurt, Lutz Teutloff Gallery, 1996
• Paris, FIAC '94, Galerie Hans Mayer GmbH, 1994 and 1995
• Frankfurt a. M., ART-Frankfurt, Galerie Hans Mayer GmbH, 1994 and 1995
• Ghent, Belgium, LINEA '83, design fair, 1983

literature

• Bazon Brock : Heartware . In: Spiegel special . No. 3 . Hamburg March 1995, p. 146–153 ( spiegel.de ).
• David Galloway (Ed.): Petrus Wandrey - pictures, sculptures, objects . Oktagon, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-89611-069-1 .
• Harald Falckenberg: “Angel Age” - excerpt from the exhibition opening speech . Main church St. Katharinen, Hamburg 2000.
• Digitalism - Petrus Wandrey . In: Andreas Grosz (Ed.): Art and Technology - Aesthetics in Transition . tape 61 . Publications of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, Braunschweig 1990, ISBN 3-927939-06-4 .

Web links

Commons : Petrus Wandrey  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Petrus Wandrey in the catalog of the German National Library
• Petrus Wandrey's website
• Petrus Wandrey at Sabatier
• Realization of many Wandrey works of art with the help of Heger circuit boards
• Inspiration at Fischer Electronics
• Commissioned work for Desitin Arzneimittel
• Cycle path to art, part of art moves
• Bad Salzdetfurth Art Association
• Petrus Wandrey at Chahil

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 13 ff.
2. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 38f.
3. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 7.
4. ↑ Grosz, 1990, digitalism, title page
5. ↑ Brock, Heartware, p. 146.
6. ↑ Galloway, 1999, pp. 8-9.
7. ↑ Grosz, 1990, p. 27.
8. ↑ Galloway, 1999, pp. 43, 46-47.
9. ↑ Falckenberg, 2000.
10. ↑ Brock, Heartware, p. 146.
11. ^ Galloway, 1999
12. ↑ Galloway, 1999, pp. 54f.
13. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 56.
14. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 56.
15. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 76.
16. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 91.
17. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 112.
18. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 118.
19. ↑ Galloway, 1999, pp. 140f.
20. ↑ Galloway, 1999, p. 159.
21. ↑ cf. Galloway, 1999, pp. 12-15.
22. ↑ DIGITALISM ART - the ingenious world of Petrus Wandrey . Spandau Citadel; Retrieved June 2, 2014