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Curated by Megan Lykins Reich, Assistant Curator

ON VIEW in the Ginn Gallery

"The work of Christian Wulffen proves to be a constant estimation of measurement: of his own action, of the possibilities of artistic utterance, of the chosen locations, of the art system.” – Nikolai B. Faustbauer

Wulffen earned his MFA from the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Germany in 1987. Previous to that, he was a visiting student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf and also at The Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at venues including the Municipal Art Museum, Singen; Kunsthaus Baselland; Stiftung für Konkrete Kunst (Reutlingen: www.stiftungkonkretekunst.de); Niklas von Bartha Gallery (London); Michael Sturm Gallery (Stuttgart); and the McDonough Museum of Art (Youngstown), among others. Wulffen was Artist-in-Residence at the Art Foundation Baden-Württemberg and the Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris). Before coming to the United States in 2003, he was an instructor at the Independent Art Academy (Metzingen) and the Artistic Associate to the Dean at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. He has been an Associate Professor at The Cleveland Institute of Art for five years.

Christian Wulffen is interested in how structure and context affect the meaning of objects and experiences. In the exhibition, Christian Wulffen: It Is, It Is Not, the artist explores the factors that influence one’s perception, interpretation, and understanding of "everyday life." Referencing concrete art, a European movement coined by Theo van Doesburg in 1930, Wulffen bases his artistic examinations on real objects, structures, and spaces. His handmade and pre-manufactured works combine recognizable objects like books and newspapers, familiar materials like graphite and wood, and basic forms like grids.

Like Sol Lewitt’s Incomplete Open Cubes or Rachel Whiteread’s negative casts of library book shelves and house interiors, Wulffen draws our attention to the structures and spaces in and around objects (and experiences) that help define their meaning. Through the repeating presence of the grid, he emphasizes how even the most fundamental structures can vary. Juxtaposing these abstract forms with recognizable objects, Wulffen shows the multiplicity of meaning available in every object and experience. In doing so, he reveals that interpretation (of art, of life, of anything) is an infinitely variable, context-based, highly subjective exercise. t;/p>