Drei Haare und Schatten, 1968

Wolf Vostell’s edition Drei Haare und Schatten (1968) combines a stark photographic image of a helicopter with brightly coloured graphic interventions and physical materials. Three strands of synthetic hair extend across the image, while small balls of cotton and painted marks interrupt the black-and-white photograph, creating a tension between the mechanically reproduced image and the tangible elements added to its surface. The helicopter motif had already appeared in Vostell’s work the previous year.
The work exemplifies Vostell’s concept of Dé-coll/age, in which fragments of mass-media imagery are disrupted, overlaid and transformed to challenge the authority of the original image. By combining the photograph with everyday materials and graphic interventions, Vostell turns a seemingly documentary image into a layered and unsettling visual object.