Wolfgang Eberhard Stoerchle''Oklahoma, Naturalization Records, 1889-1991'' (born Störchle; January 17, 1944 – March 14, 1976) was a German-American

conceptual artist Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional Aesthetics, aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes ca ...

known for influential performance and video works made in Southern California in the 1970s.

Early life and education

Stoerchle was born in

Titisee-Neustadt Titisee-Neustadt () is a municipality in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is made up of the six communities of Neustadt, Langenordnach, Rudenberg, Titisee, Schwärzenbach and Waldau. The town ...

, Germany, during World War II. He moved with his family to

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, 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. He went to college at the

University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...

from 1964 to 1968 and began graduate work at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, earning an M.F.A. in 1968. He became a naturalized citizen in Oklahoma. During this time he performed in California with fellow artists Miles Varner and Daniel Lentz in a group called California Time Machine.

Career

In 1970, he began teaching in the Post-Studio Art program at

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

, where his fellow instructors included

Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and " Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well ...

and

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...

. His teaching assistant was

Jack Goldstein Jack Goldstein (September 27, 1945 – March 14, 2003) was a Canadian born, California-based performance and conceptual artist turned painter in the 1980s art boom. Early life and education Goldstein was born to a Jewish family in Montreal, ...

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

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.

References

1944 births 1976 deaths People from Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald German artists German emigrants to the United States Immigrants to Canada Immigrants to the United States University of Oklahoma alumni University of California, Santa Barbara alumni {{Germany-artist-stub