Wolfgang Stoerchle

Wolfgang Eberhard Stoerchle[1] (born Störchle; January 17, 1944 – March 14, 1976) was a German-American conceptual artist known for influential performance and video works made in Southern California in the 1970s.[2]

Early life and education

Stoerchle was born in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany, during World War II. He moved with his family to Toronto, Ontario, Canada as a teenager in 1959. In 1962, he spent ten months riding through the United States on horseback with his brother, Peter, arriving in Los Angeles and living there in 1963–64.[3]

He went to college at the University of Oklahoma from 1964 to 1968 and began graduate work at the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning an M.F.A. in 1968.[3] He became a naturalized citizen in Oklahoma.[1] During this time he performed in California with fellow artists Miles Varner and Daniel Lentz in a group called California Time Machine.[4]

Career

In 1970, he began teaching in the Post-Studio Art program at California Institute of the Arts, where his fellow instructors included Allan Kaprow and Nam June Paik.[3] His teaching assistant was Jack Goldstein.[5]

In 1972, Stoerchle made a controversial performance at the Pomona College Museum of Art in which he urinated on a rug in the gallery.[6] Backlash to the performance from the college's more socially conservative administration led to a mass resignation of the art faculty.[6]

Death

Stoerchle moved to New Mexico in the fall of 1975. He died six months later after a car accident, age 32. He was survived by his wife, Carol.[7]

References
  1. Oklahoma, Naturalization Records, 1889-1991
  2. Phillips, Glenn (2008). California Video: Artists and Histories. Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-89236-922-5.
  3. "PRELIMINARY INVENTORY OF THE WOLFGANG STOERCHLE PAPERS, 1952-2007, bulk 1968-1998". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  4. "Wolfgang Stoerchle»Pacific Standard Time at the Getty". Pacific Standard Time at the Getty. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
  5. Hertz, Richard (2003). Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia. Ojai, California: Minneola Press. p. 70.
  6. Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter (January 12, 2012). "Pacific Standard Time | The Cutting Edge at Pomona". Artnet. Retrieved 2022-03-26.
  7. "Stoerchle, Wolfgang E.". The Santa Fe New Mexican. Santa Fe, New Mexico. March 16, 1976. p. 38.


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