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Gerhard Rühm, Haar Haare, 1958, 1988, Silkscreen on cloth, 110 × 150 cm, Edition of 30

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Gerhard Rühm (b. 1930 in Vienna, Austria, lives and works in Cologne, Germany) works between word and image, language and music, writing and drawing, producing sound poems, visual poetry, photomontages, and book objects. In 1953, together with Friedrich Achleitner, H. C. Artmann, Konrad Bayer, and Oswald Wiener, Rühm founded the Wiener Gruppe, a constellation of Austrian poets and writers engaged in radical linguistic experiments inspired by Expressionism, Dada, and Constructivism. Several disciplines converge and often overlap in Rühm’s extensive body of work emphasizing language comprehended in the totality of its expressions, whether musical, performative, visual, or written. A substantial theoretical and philosophical framework is also present, expressed in numerous critical publications devoted to literature as well as theatre, such as the extensive grundlagen des neues theaters (1962) and zu meinen auditiven texten (1970) dedicated to his radio plays. Rühm’s work has been included at documenta in Kassel (1977 and 1987), ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2017), and Kunstforum Wien in Vienna (2018).

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