Ludwig Wilding: Space – Movement – Time

“Poles do not see very well” was Professor Maria Poprzęcka’s answer when I asked why Ludwig Wilding and his work were entirely unknown in Poland. Wilding is an established artist in Western Europe. The opening this May of his retrospective Visuelle Phänomene at the Museum für Konkrete Kunst in Ingolstadt drew crowds of visitors from Western Europe. I myself could barely move from one gallery to the next. Works by the artist, who turned eighty this year, are held in numerous European and American collections.

The lack of familiarity with Ludwig Wilding’s work in Poland probably also stems from the fact that Op Art was never particularly popular in this country. The artist himself points out that the movement’s name in a sense restricted and narrowed the reception of its works to the optical—to what reaches the viewer through the eyes.