ent-wickelnd 1949

Leo Leuppi made this collage called ‘ent-wickelnd’ – that’s German for ‘un-wrapping’ or ‘un-folding’ – sometime in the mid-twentieth century. It’s a playful composition, a bit like a deconstructed totem pole, with shapes and colors stacked on top of one another. The surface is mostly matte, built up from torn shapes of paper. There are rectangles and circles in blue, white, red, and yellow. Then these gestural white shapes loop and curl through the center of the piece. Are they made from paper too? It’s hard to tell. They feel almost calligraphic. They are opaque but their edges are rough, like thick impasto. Look at the way the artist has allowed the pale olive-colored ground to show through. The ground becomes a kind of atmosphere, unifying these different elements. This work reminds me a little of Kurt Schwitters, but it has a lightness all its own. I love the way it embraces simplicity, ambiguity, and a sense of childlike wonder.