The German-Swedish artist Ann Wolff (born in 1937) is one of the most significant and exciting proponents of the European studio glass movement. She has an expert understanding of the characteristics of glass and how to show off the complete spectrum of its diverse possibilities of expression.
The publication offers an extensive overview of the period of work over the last ten prolific years. With most of her large-format sculptures, the medium of glass plays a central role, but Ann Wolff is not restricted to it alone; she also uses other materials, such as bronze, concrete or aluminium. The catalogue is boosted by additional selected drawings and pastels.
Common to these is the eponymous motif of ‘persona’, the character mask, which expresses the artist’s continuous debate with philosophical and existential issues. In doubling and mirror imaging, in veiling and exposing, she revolves around fundamental questions of the Self and the Other and her bilateral perception.
Ann Wolff is represented in numerous prestigious museums and collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Designmuseum Danmark, Copenhagen; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo; Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris; and mudac, Lausanne.
With a contribution by Mark Gisbourne and a foreword by Klaus Weschenfelder. Published by the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung.
Exhibition: Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, Munich, Germany, 17/10/2014 to 12/6/2015
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The book Ann Wolff – Persona (person, somebody) is a book you wants books to be: informative, well-made, clar lay out and pleasing to the eye and invites the reader to start reading and looking right away.
Eva-Maria Fahrner-Tutsek explains in her essay the start in 2013 of a new series of exhibitions called Master/Meister, her choice to invite Ann Wolff and describes the life and career of Ann Wolff as an artist. For her the exposition Persona reveals Wolff’s creative power, showing an overview of the last 10 years.
Fahrner-Tutsek studied psychology, political science and sociology, worked between 1978 and 1999 in the administration and organization of research projects at Max-Planck- Institut / psychiatry, at Technische Universität München and is since 2000 chief executive of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung with the fields of work fine arts and science and organizes expositions on glass.
Mark Gisbourne is the other author and is a.o. former Tutor, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London and Lecturer, Slade School of Fine Art, University College, University of London; and Post-Graduate Senior Lecturer in Post-war and Contemporary Art, at Sotheby’s Institute (Manchester University Masters Programme). A former President of the British Art Critics Association (AICA), and as curator and critic his many publications include Berlin Art Now (Thames & Hudson, English and German editions). He very eruditely explains in the essay the Embodied Personae the mask as theme in the transparent sculptures in the vast body of works of Wolff, while the following large photos and drawings of the glass sculptures show all aspects Gisbourne is referring to. It is a pleasure to read such an interesting text.
Followed by a biography and a page on the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung it is a compact book to study and understand the power of Ann Wolff and her works.
A book well-recommended to all working with glass like students of glass schools, glass collectors and visitors of expositions.
Angela van der Burght
