TV Decoll/age
Wolf Vostell, 1958

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artist bio
TV Decoll/age no. 1

Launching a series of works culminating in a 1963 solo show in New York, TV-Decoll/age no. 1 was probably the first artwork to utilize the television as medium. Sources conflict as to whether this work was actually realized in 1958, but the sketches for the piece certainly date to that year. The project outline called for 5 TV sets of various sizes mounted behind a clean white canvas. The glow of these TV screens showing distorted images was intended to produce 'constant changes' on the canvas in front. When Vostell exhibited his TV works, he said, "The TV set is declared to be the sculpture of the twentieth century" (Rush, Michael: New Media in Late 20th Century Art, 85).
His New York show came two months after Nam June Paik's first exhibit of TV-based work and, clearly, similar ideas and cultural observations motivated their respective practices. Vostell said,
Marcel Duchamp has declared readymade objects as art, and the Futurists declared noises as art -- it is an important characteristic of my efforts and those of my colleagues to declare as art the total event, comprising noise/object/color/& psychology -- a merging of elements, so that life(man) can be art. (Rush, 117)

Vostell's work interests me purely out of an interest in the early directions of new media art. His work demonstrates his sharp awareness of the tremendous impact electronic culture would have before McLuhan had even published The Gutenberg Galaxy.

Submitted by
Brett Schultz

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