ALLES in Allem: Wolfgang Schäfer

Wolfgang Schäfer, artist and artistic director of the Düsseldorf Weltkunstzimmer, publishes "ALL in Allem", an extensive artist's book. Featuring various genres such as photography, painting, Butoh dance, performance and installation, the book spans a creative period from 1978 to 2023, with Schäfer striving to capture the diversity of his art while highlighting the common thread that runs through his multimedia works.
"The transitory category of art expresses itself in the demand to expose, expose, expose, excavate and forcibly return to the elemental of existence. To this day he practices this particular "dance of darkness." His painting changed under the influence of the expressive dance to a represented painting. It was about the liberation of painting through the action of painting itself." according to Carl Friedrich Schröer
The book was edited by the Museum Goch and published by Kettler Verlag. It contains text contributions by Dr. Stephan Mann, Steffen Fischer, Paul Schwietzke, Doctor Emmanuel Mir, Carl Friedrich Schröer, and Nourit Masson-Sékiné, which together create an immersive experiential space on 176 pages. Readers are drawn from page to page into Schäfer's artistic world, into the microcosm and macrocosm of nature, and into the associated cycles of becoming and passing, as well as into the experience of action painting and abstract-expressive painting.
Special space is devoted to Butoh dance, which Schäfer has practiced since 1984 and perfected through encounters with Butoh masters such as Kazuo Ohno since 1986. The synergy of these mediums in his performances allows for a deeply existential experience for the viewer, which this artist's book seeks to convey.
"Sensing nature and its forces is existential to the evolution of the works. Organic processes of change, transience and dissolution become visible and merge symbiotically with the canvas," says Janine Blöß.

Currently, the group exhibition "L'Espace en Question" is running at WELTKUNSTZIMMER, presenting works by artists such as Sibylle Czichon, Rebecca Konforti, Sabrina Podemski, Manuel Pomar, Romain Ruiz-Pacouret, Wolfgang Schäfer and Emmanuel Simon. The exhibition will run through September 23, 2023, and hours are Thursdays through Sundays from 2:00 to 6:00 pm.
On Thursday, September 14, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., there will be an art aperitif with a DJ set by Anna Freytag, accompanied by the presentation of the video documentation of the Butoh performance "Extended Body" by Wolfgang Schäfer.

Future exhibitions are planned:
On September 29, the exhibition "Courage and Sensuality" with works by Claudia Van Koolwijk, Julia Van Koolwijk, Veit Ferrer, Felix Baltzer, Leonore Araki, Wolfgang Schäfer, Ulrike Schröter, Thomas Virnich and Ralf Berger opens at Neubrückstraße 6, 40213 Düsseldorf in the former Anna Klinkhammer Gallery,at 6 p.m., in reminiscence of the joint exhibition at CON-SUM in 2007.

From October 4 to October 29, 2023 at the Stadtmuseum, with the opening on October 4 at 6:00 pm.

Another exhibition will be held at Museum Goch from October 25 to November 12, 2023, with the opening on October 25 at 6:00 pm.

Schäfer's Butoh performances will be held at the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf on October 10 at 18:00, at Neubrückstraße 6 on October 14, and at the Museum Goch on November 03 at 18:00. The presentations in Düsseldorf are partly supported by the Kunst und Kulturstiftung der Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf and the Johanna Eye Stiftung i.Gr..