Wolfgang Voigt - Werkschau (english)

The creative body of Wolfgang Voigt has always been characterized by complexity, boundlessness, unpredictability. The negation of the bounds of genre, style, and taste has been and still is today a crucial element of his body of work, just like the uptake / quotation and processing of external contents through universal sampling. Having been socialized in the pop culture of the 1970s and 80s, Wolfgang Voigt has since been creating his very own art-music cosmos influenced by glam rock and jazz, new wave and folk music, pop art, and digital expressionism. In the 1990s, Voigt, a founding member and influential part of the Cologne-based electronic label Kompakt, advances in the wake of the globally booming techno movement, restlessly driven by his iconic straight bass drum, by countless projects ranging between formally-rigorous minimalism and expressive hardcore acid, between gabber and polka to the driving force of conceptual techno made in Cologne (Sound of Cologne). His audiovisual project GAS, based on psychedelically-compressed classical sound sources in combination with ecstatically-focused forest photographs and films, particularly fascinates audiences far beyond electronic music and techno. "GAS fantasizes about an audiovisual frenzy between Schönberg and Kraftwerk, between French horn and bass drum. GAS is Wagner as glam rock, is Hansel and Gretel on acid. An endless march through the undergrowth, into the imaginary discotheque of a nebulous, abstract forest"

On the occasion of the release of the 10th GAS record - Der Lange Marsch -, the retrospective presented at JUBG showcases for the very first time a comprehensive selection of Wolfgang Voigt’s artistic work of the last couple decades in Cologne.

Both his musical and pictorial work has Wolfgang Voigt mostly follow strictly conceptual principles, which he repeatedly refines and variegates. Besides a predominantly sample-based, rather freely abstract to gestural musical and figurative language, it is mainly the loop principle that has fascinated Voigt all along.

The static or varied replay of minimalistic-repetitive structures, birthing certain patterns, and shapes. A way of thinking that is also very much influenced by the structure of computer-based music programs, which is visible in Voigt’s work in various ways. And although or maybe because of the computer being Voigt’s primary artistic medium in both disciplines - and Voigt mainly considers himself a digital artist - he occasionally transposes his conceptual, mostly serial ideas to the "live" instrument (Freiland Klaviermusik) or "real" color (machine painting).

The exhibition "Wolfgang Voigt - Werkschau” opens on December 3rd, 2021, at Kompakt and is presented by JUBG. The release of the record GAS - Der Lange Marsch - will be held on the same day as part of the exhibition.

Path. Destination. Loop. Forest Loop.

[catbus]

new gas album thanks for saving christmas this year wolfgang

[suncity]

i had forgotten i had goosebump mode and evidently it still works !

[simongreenthumb]

a glimpse into a dark room through a crack in the door in a windy night after a 300mg edible