Page 31 - Studio International - May 1965

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at the beholder with thousand-fold enigmatic orbs.
Sometimes they form chimerical shapes or configura­
tions which move like fantastic fishes or interlacing
water-plants in a darkling aquarium, lightly wafted to
and fro by invisible currents. Other figure groups again
appear to have turned to rocks, coral or walls, only
variegated by the pale light that flickers over them.
Compared with earlier works. which are still in the
manner of 'traditional' Surrealism, Oelze's new con­
figurations retreat further into the perspective plane.
The space surrounding them within the range of the
picture seems like an imaginary glass pane which shuts
off the 'aquarium· from the beholder and is pressed
against it into the surface.
Wieland Schmied, the initiator of the great retro­
spective Exhibition. remarks in the excellent Catalogue
which is, in fact, a complete oeuvre catalogue of
Oelze's work: 'Oelze-one thinks of Odilon Redon
painting Bocklin's "Toteninsel" or "Prometheus" ·.
Schmied thus evokes the peculiarly personal magic
which these pictures exert on the contemporary
beholder. their strange symbolism (no longer anecdotal
or genre-like). as well as the decisive stand against
abstract formalism, and Oelze's predilection for the
abysmal, the disturbed, the indefinable, which fascinate
so many contemporary art lovers. Although object and
idea play an important part, Oelze's art is not a 'literary'
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