PSR 8598, 1989

Stereoscopic wall illusion object, unique specimen

Dimensions: 86 x 85 x 11 cm

Ludwig Wilding, born 1927 in Grünstadt, Germany, is one of the most important representatives of kinetic art and Op-Art in Germany. He died in 2010 in Buchholz in der Nordheide, Germany.

After studying art history and philosophy, Wilding worked as a designer in the textile industry until the 1960s, when he became a member of the art movement Neue Tendenzen (Nouvelles Tendances). Until the early 1990s, Wilding participated in numerous exhibitions of the Deutscher Künstlerbund. In addition to his artistic activities, Wilding also taught as a professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg between 1969 and 1992.

In 2007, together with his wife Ingeborg Wilding (née König) and in cooperation with the city of Ingolstadt, the artist founded the Foundation for Concrete Art and Design.

Basically, the so-called moiré effect can be identified as the essential basis of the artist's various wall objects. By superimposing two-dimensional line structures, which the artist places on different levels of the wall objects, the artist triggers an irritation in the viewer's perception. Through this layering, the resulting objects create illusory movement, virtuality, stereoscopies as well as paradoxical bodies and anamorphoses.

An elementary part of the artist's work is the fact that Wilding's intention is to enable the viewer to experience art in a way that goes beyond what they are used to or know. By using the moiré effect, the viewer is an active component of the work of art and is supposed to make it possible for him/her to consciously experience an individual and personal experience.

Through this kind of blurring, based on the fact that the viewer(s) are an active part of Wilding's works, the artist pushes the dissolution of the role distinctions between artist and viewer(s). It is probably also due to his activity as a designer that Ludwig Wilding's works can be consumed without prior knowledge of art history or other codes of art and that his art can be described as "art for everyone" (formulation of the artist group Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel [GRAV] and Nouvelles Tandences).