Richard Oelze’s inner landscapes appear to have been just that bit too weird for his reputation to have survived intact. The epitome of the alienated introvert, the Germany surrealist dreamed goggle-eyed faces crowding out his seclusion from all sides. Occasionally his protagonists tip a brim to the trilby-hatted losers of film noir, and there are thematic echoes of 1950s alien invasion movies. Oelze appealed to the psychedelically infected cold-war paranoia of the 60s, yet an aura of inadvertent kitsch clung to his work throughout. Until now. Perhaps Oelze is beginning to seem a fearfully relevant, hallucinatory joker for our world of impending something-or-other. Is he the surrealist we dreadfully deserve?
