Exhibition Museum Regional Guadalajara, Mexico, 2011/12

Exhibition Gallery JMV
Mexico City, 2011


About WH Scholz
Artes e Historia, Mexico, 2010


Exhibition Gallery Association of Art, Dresden, Germany, 2009

Exhibition Museum Chopo
Mexico City, 2005


Multimedia Dance Performance
Landscapes of Love


Documentary
Das Bild in mir / Image Inside


Fiction Film
Lost Wings / Verlorene Flügel


Documentary + Fiction Film
Shadow Seeker / Schattensucher


About WH Scholz
DNN, Dresden, Germany, 1994

Artes e Historia, Mexico City, 17.01.2010
Expulsion from Paradise / Vertreibung aus dem Paradies
Wolfgang H Scholz, an versatile artist - by Lenice Rivera


The end of art isn’t to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity (Alberto Giacometti)

Wolfgang Scholz was born in Dresden, Germany in 1958 and studied at the Academy of Arts in Dresden. After several decades of working in art he has shown in many individual and group exhibitions in Germany, th USA, and Mexico. Among the recent spaces where he has exhibited we can count:
Museo Universitario del Chopo, Centro Cultural “Los Talleres’A.C.,Galería Vértice in Guadalajara, and the old Palace of the Arzobispado. Among his recognitions, he has received the first prize in the Dresden festival (1991), the silver award in the Houston Festival (1999). He now lives in Mexico and Munich.

During his career, Wolfgang has been active in painting, film making, photography, graphology, making art-objects and video-installations.
Even though he does his work in different spaces it is not hard to see that some elements filter from one discipline into the other.
Scholz’ work ranges from the objective to the concept, between the material and thought, from figurative to the abstract; from the inside out , from human to animal shapes, from the rational to the irrational, from the dramaturgy of color to that of rhythm. But on top of that the artist works in the from of spontaneity of the image to the imaginary symbols so that the individual references get a frame of reference. Referring to the playing with materials says Rafael Pérez y Pérez :”…The work of Wolfgang Scholz finds a personal vision of emotions in a real world, which turn into formal expressive statements to which he arrives through the interpretation of the real materials he uses. He manages to show a brutal presentation of figures through the use of a palette filled with material from which the figures emerge and that are transformed as he reworks the different parts of each piece, to the point at which  a sculptural figure emerges and that…at the end.. one only senses…the different parts./ Images surge with great force on nearly two-toned surfaces, warm and strong colors. In them we can feel the particular way of perceiving the human being, as the centre of attention, but not in an academic way, but rather in a manner that deconstructs shapes that give the image as purely pictorial.”



As a versatile, multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary artist he has explored different disciplines, techniques and materials throughout his carrier.
In painting he has explored colors and textures in a way that he could be considered the inheritor of German expressionism.
The yellows, blues, black, and reds, the asphalt, the superposition of paper on the surfaces as see though layers. His recent work has been in red, most of the pieces are medium and large scale, in which he plays with the different tonalities- which he himself calls a battle of color-textures and layers, or figures, that sometimes close into themselves or align from the outside. In his own words” To me the silhouettes , edges of shadows , fragments of figures, represent memories. It is like looking for materials of memories known since a long time ago in the faces of humanity.”

While Scholz perceives painting as frozen movement; in filmed images he works with rhythm and dramaturgy, so as to show a different way of looking. Such is the case of his vide-installations for instance “Landscapes of Love” in which his images fuse with dance. The choreography is by Isabel Beteta and unfolds at the same time that that she can be seen on two large screens, The result is that of different realities that reflect the dancer’s internal world: a kind of unfolding reality between emotion and physicality. On another occasion Scholz worked with dance group Nemian and created the multimedia piece “Cicles”.
In the area of film makingWolfgang Scholz produced in 1986 his first film. To this day they amount to 26, among them “Lost Wings” .He has taught at the Munich University; he has worked for the Bavarian TV and other channels. In 1993 he founded his own company to produce films “sic’ film”. He is most known both in Germany and in Mexico precisely in the area of film.


Within his production Scholz also has art- objects, such as in his ”Cocoons”
Which were exhibited in the Museum of the Palacio del Arzobispado. It is a poetic shape taken from the animal world. Each structure is shaped with silk paper held by wire and waxed. It is covered for its protection by a transparent surface. Hanging these transparent objects show the paradox between their fragility and their large volume ( 3-4 meters long). Another art- object project was shown in the Chopo Museum under the name
Relax you have arrived at the goal, title that comes from the inscription in pipe tobacco boxes. In such pieces painting, drawing and the object itself come together questioning where the human being winds his way. The re stating the primordial questions is precisely what Wolfgang Scholz is constantly searching for in his work.
One of the newer aspects that Wolfgang is working in is photography. Aside from capturing surfaces with his lens , he has been working a particular type of portraiture: seeing faces as the starting point of social experience Faces are divided vertically in half and the two right halves are put together in one image that completes one face, then the two right halves, a second face, and these are completed with a third picture which is the original. One side shows the emotional aspects of the person, the other side corresponds to the practical aspects. It is an analysis of the apparent reality. It explores the depth behind the surface in all its complexity.
Another vein that Scholz has been presenting in his photography is of an abstract nature, which becomes concrete in his pictures. Codes and numbers that he has been shooting from  big billboard that are characteristic  of beside the Mexican roads and city streets. Its interpretation is left to those that can decipher them. For someone who doesn’t know the meaning it simply is part of the scenery.
The red paintings , films, video-installations, art-objects…all of this is part of the interesting work of the German artist by birth and Mexican by adoption, Wolfgang Scholz.

Interesting, varied, strong, it is without a doubt something worth while following and not to loose the opportunity of seeing his exhibitions in museums and galleries in our country.