purpose and facticity
Galerie Rupert Pfab, Düsseldorf
24. January – 14. March 2026
In purpose and facticity, Matthias Wollgast presents works from four closely interwoven series. What unites them is an engagement with cultural memory, media perception, and the question of how history, current events, and information are produced today.
Taking the daily coverage of international newspapers as his starting point, he investigates whether we are witnesses to "History in the Making" or merely consumers of fleeting snapshots. Is news an expression of the pursuit of truth — or part of modern myth-making? And where does the line run between human interpretation and algorithmic construction?
Over several months, Matthias Wollgast collected headlines and pictorial motifs from the daily press and translated them into painting. Appropriation and recontextualization are at the center of this process.
The series KW assembles unaltered headlines from international newspapers, ordered by calendar week. In the Daily Vessels, motifs from the daily press are transferred onto vases, simultaneously elevating them aesthetically and fracturing them in content — echoing ancient vessels as historical testimonies of everyday life.
With the syntheticós mýthos, artificial myths emerge: AI-generated, invented vase images with no real historical reference, yet citing familiar forms and visual languages. Finally, the Arteriors series shows multilayered interiors full of art-historical allusions — imaginary spaces as psychogram-like mirrors of their inhabitants.
purpose and facticity asks about the role of art and the artist in a present shaped by news. Between chronicle, critique, and observation, subjective snapshots emerge that, despite deliberate selection, remain legible as original testimonies of their time.
