Annette Wehrmann
1961–2010 in Hamburg
Blumensprengung
Annette Wehrmann’s series Blumensprengung (Flower Blast) takes up the pioneer spirit of the early 1970s, which was characterized by the influences of an increasingly powerful women’s movement and a growing politicization. The photographs show explosions of firecrackers that Wehrmann deposited in various public flowerbeds. Through these actions she thwarts the bourgeois need for a tamed nature in the urban space and plays simultaneously with the fear of its destruction, using typically male “weapons”. Her works and actions defy the allegedly unshakable norms and rules of society. By combining anarchistic prose, intellectual discourse, and deadpan humor, she expresses her protest. Annette Wehrmann, who died at an early age, represented an autonomous attitude to which she committed herself, not only in her art but also in her entire life.
