Typewriting and Poems

Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt is a singular phenomenon in the art of the GDR. Apart from her, no one has worked intensively with typewriter graphics. But she has also made a name for herself on the international scene of concrete and visual poets, and her work is collected worldwide. Ruth Wolf was born in Wurzen in 1932 and initially did an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk – typing was part of it. After graduating from high school, she began studying philosophy in Berlin. In 1954 she met the young artist Robert Rehfeldt and found a job at the Academy of Arts in the GDR. She draws and paints on the side. She doesn't show her poems to anyone. In the early 1970s she began to develop her typical typewriting and to participate in the international Mail Art network. In 1975 the autodidact became a candidate and later a member of the Association of Artists in the GDR. She found her style. With punctuation marks and lines, she creates cage creatures that stand for themselves, but can also be read as a symbol of life in the GDR. Her ingenuity and the care with which she plays the keyboard of the typewriter in ever new variations are impressive. After a lively exhibition activity, she stopped her artistic work in 1990. With the retrospective on her 80th birthday, the Study Center for Artists' Publications at the Weserburg in Bremen is reassessing her work. Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt lives in Berlin and is represented by the ChertLüdde Gallery. In 2017 she took part in documenta 14.