Stoerchle, Wolfgang, 1944-1976

Wolfgang Stoerchle was an important figure in the development of performance and video art in Southern California. Born in Germany, Stoerchle emigrated to Toronto, Canada with his family in 1959, and moved to the United States in 1962. He began experimenting with performance and video art in the late 1960s and early 1970s while studying at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and teaching in the Post-Studio Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts.

From the description of Wolfgang Stoerchle papers, 1952-2007. (Getty Research Institute). WorldCat record id: 664319559

Biographical/Historical Note

Wolfgang Stoerchle was an important figure in the development of performance and video art in Southern California in the 1970s. Born in Germany, Stoerchle emigrated to Toronto, Canada with his family in 1959. In 1962 he and his brother Peter rode horseback through the United States for ten months to Los Angeles, where Stoerchle lived from 1963 to 1964.

After attending the University of Oklahoma from 1964 to 1968, Stoerchle enrolled in the MFA program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While there he began experimenting with performance and sound art. He performed throughout California with Miles Varner and Daniel Lentz in a group called California Time Machine. In 1970 Allan Kaprow recruited Stoerchle to teach in the Post-Studio Art program at the California Institute of the Arts. Encouraged by Nam June Paik, who was also teaching at CalArts during this time, Stoerchle began experimenting with video. Collectively, his video works show a complete dissection of the medium, isolating nearly every formal property of video and turning it towards often poignant efforts to capture and contain the body.

Stoerchle was included in a number of important exhibitions in the early 1970s, including 24 Young Artists at LACMA in 1971, the Pier 18 exhibition at MoMA, and a two-person exhibition with William Wegman at Sidney Janis gallery. He moved to New York in 1973 and shifted his concentration from the abstract and conceptual work that had garnered so much attention, to blunt depictions of sexuality and nudity. Stoerchle left New York by the middle of 1973.

During the last three years of his life Stoerchle moved back and forth between Mexico City, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Santa Fe, where he lived with his second wife, Carol Lingham, whom he married in 1974. Stoerchle continued producing art during this time, primarily fiery abstract pencil drawings and ephemeral sculptures resembling primitive shrines and mounds. In the fall of 1975, he presented his final performance in John Baldessari's studio. On March 14, 1976, Stoerchle died following injuries suffered in a car accident.

From the guide to the Wolfgang Stoerchle papers, 1952-2007, (The Getty Research Institute)