Boris Lurie & Wolf Vostell

The art of Boris Lurie (* 1924, Leningrad) and Wolf Vostell (* 1932, Leverkusen) is determined by the break in civilization in Germany in 1933, which made the German genocide of German and European Jews (the Shoah) possible. Both artists make the Shoah the subject of their work in a radical way. They work - initially independently of one another - with the means of painting and during the 1950s they resort to the stylistic devices of the first avant-garde: Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism. They strategically employ collage and assembly techniques. Vostell later develops the subject further in the media of happening and video art while Lurie takes up writing. In 1964 the artists met in New York and entertained  a lifelong friendship.

After surviving several labor and concentration camps, the Jewish artist BORIS LURIE (1924-2008) moved to New York in 1946. With often direct reference to the Shoah, Lurie commented on the society and consumer culture of his time.

The German artist WOLF VOSTELL (1932-1988) was a protagonist of the Fluxus movement and a pioneer of happening- and video art. Vostell confronted post-war European audiences with its recent past in a variety of ways.