Introduction by Martin Kraft for the exhibit of the Cycle: Based on Contemporary Composers: Wolfgang Rihm

Where other painters find their inspiration in landscapes, Snues A. Voegelin mostly finds his in music and literature. His proceedings are unique in their way and have gradually matured with great consistency. Ultimately, art that is guided by visible reality certainly also reflects an inner view. But this matters even more for an oeuvre that does not know such guidance. Voegelin's motives do not stem from a visual source. Moreover, although they are explicitly referred to in the paintings' titles, they are hardly more than an impulse for an ultimately intuitive creativeness. This happens in a twilight zone, between an outer and inner world, but also between disciplines, preferably there, where words and music meet as composed lyrics.

From the Cycle: Based on Contemporary Composers: Wolfgang Rihm 1. Das Räumlichsein ..., 1998   2. Frühe Kindheitserlebnisse, 1997   3. Die Macht des Wortes, 1998

Here a transgression of borders is happening which will extend into the whole surrounding of the musically-literary motive. This leads the artist to a lengthy – in spite of its personal stamp – seemingly scientific research. The immediate goal, however, is not the painting itself, but that special mood out of which it can be created. This will occur – often rather quickly – by intuitive gestures of a fulfilled moment associated with Action Painting. It is more than just a significant detail that the artist never listens to music while in the process of painting. Voegelin's method of working is closely connected to his relationship with typographics. This medium does not interest him as a mere reproduction technique. Therefore he only prints monotypes or other unikate.

The recurring structuralization of the picture area with notation or lyrics creates a kind of mediation between the two very different creative phases: the literary-musically analysis and its optical implementation. This is not to be interpreted in the sense of a calligraphy, although sign-like, representational elements such as the cross can appear repeatedly. It is rather a question of a philosophy which partly modifies the still significant typography through the mirroring reversion and eventually often transforms it past recognition in free gestures. In this interconnection of writing and gestures, of musicological foundation and free creativeness, of one's own and foreign, the dialectics of order and freedom are naturally also being expressed.

With a musical and literary motive its whole surroundings emerge together as well. These could be friends or acquaintances who point out such a motive. Occasionally the artist absorbs these suggestions from outside with gratitude, as long as they set something in motion inside him. He would, however, never paint on commission. That clearly distinguishes not least the painter from the stage designer. The experience gained through theatre work has indeed influenced the free creativeness yet without really dominating it: precisely the notion of picture space as stage, which is characteristic for many other artists with theatre experience, is foreign to Voegelin.

Meetings with influential Artistic personalities are essential to him. He has Known the composer Jacques Wildberger as neighbour in Riehen since childhood. His interest in the composer's oeuvre to which many of his paintings have been referring to ever since, would later become the initial inspiration for his own artistic work.

Wolfgang Rihm at Symposion "Musik-Theater heute" of the Paul Sacher-Stiftung, 2001, Basel

Whereas a range of differently sized paintings of acryl and mixed techniques are based on the poem "Hochroth" (Deep red) by Karoline von Günderrode, the cycle based on Heiner Müller's drama "Die Hamletmaschine" (The Hamlet Machine) consists of 88 charcoal drawings of the same size plus one larger painting, the quintessence of it all, so to speak. The two texts, otherwise so unlike each other, are united by a concentrated density: The drama covers only a few print pages, furthermore the drawings each relate to only one of the five acts, based on which they are summarized in groups.

It is very obvious how both texts and poets respectively must have had a big impact on the artist. Karoline von Günderrode, whose whole fate seems to be comprehended in her poem "Hochroth", is the epitome of an exalted romantic dreamer. Out of unrequited love she committed suicide at the age of 26 and consequently was turned into a myth by her friend Bettina Brentano in her memoirs. "Die Hamletmaschine" of Heiner Müller literally provoked a composition. The piece expressed then acute experiences with politics in the GDR by encoding them into mysteriously surreal scenes. Snues A. Voegelin transforms such and other experiences into free painting and yet manages to keep them resonating in his work. That is why his paintings can have such a delightful, effect without losing their commitment.

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