Johann Dieter Wassmann (1841–1898) is a fictitious artist and sewerage engineer, purportedly from

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

, in east-central

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. He is the creation of the American-born artist and writer Jeff Wassmann. As a result of the widespread dissemination of his work, Johann Dieter Wassmann is sometimes mistakenly cited as a lesser-known figure among late-19th-century European artists; he is most often identified as an early purveyor of the

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

and

Surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

movements and has become closely associated with several notable artists of the first half of the 20th century, including

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist. He was born in Hanover, Germany, but lived in exile from 1937. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, Constructivism (a ...

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

Eugène Atget Eugène Atget (; 12 February 1857 – 4 August 1927) was a French ''flâneur'' and a pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to mod ...

and

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and filmmaker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmma ...

Overview

According to his fictitious biography, Johann Dieter Wassmann was born in Leipzig, where he witnessed the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

rapidly alter the once agrarian, guild-based and perhaps idealized

Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony ( or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 initially centred on Wittenberg that came to include areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. It was a ...

. In portraying his character as fearful of a less humanitarian world—ill at ease with the changing roles of science, medicine, religion, education,

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

and time—the artist challenges the viewer to share in the conflicts and anxieties of this ubiquitous thinker. A pivotal event in the author's narrative is

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

's defeat at the

Battle of Leipzig The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I, Karl von Schwarzenberg, and G ...

(1813), recalled first-hand by the character's father. The artist uses Napoleon's rise metaphorically to represent the onslaught of the modern era and his defeat at Leipzig as hope all was not lost of the

Romantic era Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

. The construction of Johann Dieter Wassmann trades heavily on the aesthetic philosopher

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

's notion of

suspension of disbelief Suspension of disbelief is the avoidance—often described as willing—of critical thinking and logic in understanding something that is unreal or impossible in reality, such as something in a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe i ...

to justify the use of certain fantastic or non-realistic elements. Coleridge asserts that if the author can bring a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader/viewer will withhold judgement on any improbability that might normally render the story doubtful, a contention the artist is reliant on for his audience to fully engage. As a sewerage engineer, Johann Dieter Wassmann participated in the development of a more modern and scientific approach to the control of

infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...

in cities including

Hanover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

and

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

. As a lecturer at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

, we experience him prompting students to fully explore the creative process, concerned as he is at the decline of

liberal education A liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free () human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment. It has been d ...

. But Wassmann's lasting legacy is found in his private devotion to his art. (See #Gallery section below.)

Biography

Johann Dieter Wassmann is born into a long line of carpenters on April 2, 1841, the son of August and Maria Wassmann. The youngest of five children to survive into adulthood, he is brought up in the

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

creed. After the March Revolutions of 1848, the family flees from Leipzig to

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

. A bout with

rheumatic fever Rheumatic fever (RF) is an inflammation#Disorders, inflammatory disease that can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain. The disease typically develops two to four weeks after a Streptococcal pharyngitis, streptococcal throat infection. Si ...

forces Johann to delay the start of his schooling until the age of eight. As a cabinetmaker in Weimar, his father's clients soon include

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

and

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

, among others, in what becomes a Grand Tour through 19th-century Germany's music, art, literary and academic elites. Johann goes on to attend the University of Leipzig before joining an engineering practice, specializing in the emerging field of sewerage management. At 34 he is offered a teaching post in Leipzig. In 1881, six years into his post, Johann sets out to challenge his engineering students through construction of boxed assemblage works enigmatically addressing medical and scientific themes that he feels go unresolved through traditional lecture practices. After an extended display at a

clinic, they become known as the "Dresden Boxes." These works build on the tradition of German wunderkammern and 17th-century Dutch perspective boxes, but display a stripped down aesthetic, precise, but refined. Through his extensive travels in his private practice, Johann is exposed to the best and worst 19th-century urban development has to offer. His growing angst at what he sees as the encroachment of modernity causes him to begin a second, more personal series of boxes, escaping into a romanticized view of a pre-modern Saxony, much of it set in the ancient wood of

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

and amidst the hopeful spectre of the American Transcendentalist authors

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...

and

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon sim ...

. By this point Johann is comfortably married with three children, so the intent of this second stage of boxes is largely private: they are mostly shared with family. In September 1889, an academic conference in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

brings Johann together with the physicist

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (; ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quantum, quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial con ...

in what results in a seismic shift in Johann's thinking. From here onwards he outright rejects his boxed works of recent years, brandishing them reactionary and "

Biedermeier The Biedermeier period was an era in Central European art and culture between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle classes grew in number and artists began producing works appealing to their sensibilities. The period began with the end of th ...

," before moving on to a third and final phase of work, the start of his "early Modern" period. Johann comes to realize his angst is born not in the

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular Society, socio-Culture, cultural Norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the ...

of the 19th century, but in the earlier reaches of the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

he was so recently praising. As the Newtonian perception of a

clockwork universe The clockwork universe is a concept which compares the universe to a mechanical clock. It continues ticking along, as a perfect machine, with its gears governed by the laws of physics, making every aspect of the machine predictable. It evolved d ...

merges with the force of

social Darwinism Charles Darwin, after whom social Darwinism is named Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economi ...

he recognizes that the rising mantra of "progress" has now split the world into two distinct entities: time and space. If he is to return to a unified field of time and space he knows his only choice is not to look back, but to move forward into the modern—into the unknown. Planck is presenting a paper at the conference on the

second law of thermodynamics The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on Universal (metaphysics), universal empirical observation concerning heat and Energy transformation, energy interconversions. A simple statement of the law is that heat always flows spont ...

, the subject of his recent doctoral thesis. The first to call himself a "theoretical" physicist, Planck opens his lecture in Potsdam with the revelation that, "My original decision to devote myself to science was a direct result of the discovery... that the laws of human reasoning coincide with the laws governing the sequences of the impressions we receive from the world around us; that, therefore, pure reasoning can enable man to gain an insight into the mechanism of the world." He concludes by expressing a belief that physical laws allow him to presuppose that the "... outside world is something independent from man, something absolute, and the quest for the laws which apply to this absolute appeared... as the most sublime pursuit in life." In Planck, Johann discovers a friend and colleague dedicated to the pursuit of a non-Newtonian world-view in which the linear nature of

absolute time and space Absolute space and time is a concept in physics and philosophy about the properties of the universe. In physics, absolute space and time may be a preferred frame. Early concept A version of the concept of absolute space (in the sense of a prefe ...

will dissolve into one of a multidimensional universe free of the strictures of past, present and future. Johann's remaining years will be spent expressing these early modern notions through his beloved boxes and an emerging interest in photography. Planck soon introduces Johann to the writings of

Ernst Mach Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( ; ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the understanding of the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of ...

, particularly ''Analysis of Sensations'' (1886). Here Johann finds Mach arguing that all knowledge is derived from sensation. Mach credits his philosophical awakening to reading, at age fifteen, his father's copy of Immanuel Kant's ''

Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics ''Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science'' () is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, published in 1783, two years after the first edition of his ''Critique of Pure Reason''. One of Kant ...

'': "The book made at the time a powerful and ineffaceable impression upon me, the like of which I never afterwards experienced in any of my philosophical reading. Some two or three years later the superfluity of the role played by “the thing in itself” abruptly dawned upon me. On a bright summer day in the open air, the world with my ego suddenly appeared to me as one coherent mass of sensations, only more strongly coherent in the ego. Although the actual working out of this thought did not occur until a later period, yet this moment was decisive for my whole view." All scientific investigation is a result of the experience, or "sensation," of the observer, Mach argues—later a determining factor in the

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle The uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as position a ...

. But in the more immediate term, Mach has laid the groundwork for Albert Einstein's

special theory of relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", the theory is presen ...

, published in 1905. Much like Woody Allen's fictional 1920s character Leonard Zelig, Johann Dieter Wassmann finds himself caught up in this cacophony of ideas, theories and movements, allowing him to take an active part in one of the great revolutions of the modern era. Amongst the cacophony is the advent of photography. Throughout the 1890s, Johann continues to expand the visual vocabulary of his assemblage works, but he also begins to experiment with the latent image, using both a bulky glass-plate

view camera A view camera is a large format, large-format camera in which the large format lens, lens forms an erect image, inverted image on a ground glass, ground-glass screen directly at the film plane. The image is viewed, composed, and focused, then the ...

, as well as several of the newly developed hand-held roll-film cameras. Over an eight-year period he documents the landscapes, streetscapes, architecture and interiors of eastern Germany, in a style that extends beyond the topographic traditions of the day. These photographic works provide the missing link between the meticulous, but still largely prescriptive street imagery of mid-19th-century photographer

Charles Marville Charles Marville, the pseudonym of Charles François Bossu (Paris 17 July 1813 – 1 June 1879 Paris), was a French photographer, who mainly photographed architecture, landscapes and the urban environment. He used both paper and glass negatives. ...

, and the lyrical melancholy of

in the early 20th century. As a predecessor to his fellow countrymen

Heinrich Zille Heinrich Rudolf Zille (10 January 1858 – 9 August 1929) was a German lithographer, illustrator, caricaturist, painter, and photographer. Celebrated as a keen observer of urban life, Zille became best known for his empathetic yet satirical dep ...

and

August Sander August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait photography, portrait and Documentary photography, documentary photographer. His first book ''Face of our Time'' (German: ''Antlitz der Zeit'') was published in 1929. Sande ...

, Johann discreetly anticipates what vast potential the photographic arts holds for the coming age. Until the modern era catches up with him, that is. On January 6, 1898, Johann slips on ice while boarding a tram in Leipzig; his right leg is crushed, requiring amputation. He dies of a streptococcal infection on March 18, 1898, two weeks shy of his 57th birthday. The vast trove of artworks Johann has amassed travels to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, with family members in 1910, but remains in storage through two wars with Germany. Only in 1969 is the

Wassmann Foundation The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C, is an arts collective based in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 2001, the collective has a rotating membership from a range of fields, including artists, writers, curators, musicians and film-makers. The f ...

established, with the works slowly coming to prominence in the years since. This elaborate fiction allows Johann Dieter Wassmann to escape the conceptual and physical boundaries of the art of his time, making him a pioneer of German modernism, his work emerging as a long lost precursor to the modern art methods and movements we now know as assemblage,

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

, installation,

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

and

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

Historical perspective

Johann Dieter Wassmann is part of a long history of artistic pseudonyms and hoaxes.

Rrose Sélavy Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

was just one of the pseudonyms used by the artist

. In Jeff Wassmann's adopted home of Australia,

Ern Malley The Ern Malley hoax, also called the Ern Malley affair, is Australia's most famous literary hoax. Its name derives from Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley, a fictitious poet whose biography and body of work were created in one day in 1943 by conservati ...

was the creation of writers

James McAuley James Phillip McAuley (12 October 1917 – 15 October 1976) was an Australian academic, poet, journalist, literary critic, and a prominent convert to Roman Catholicism. He was involved in the Ern Malley poetry hoax. Life and career McAuley w ...

and

Harold Stewart Harold Frederick Stewart (14 December 19167 August 1995) was an Australian poet and oriental scholar. He is chiefly remembered alongside fellow poet James McAuley as a co-creator of the Ern Malley literary hoax. Stewart's work has been asso ...

. The 1944 Ern Malley affair, as it is known, remains Australia's most celebrated literary hoax. In the late 1990s, the artist

Walid Raad Walid Raad (Ra'ad) (Arabic: وليد رعد) (born 1967 in Chbanieh, Lebanon) is a contemporary media artist. The Atlas Group is a fictional collective, the work of which is produced by Walid Raad. He lives and works in New York, where he is curr ...

began constructing elaborate fictions chronicling the contemporary history of his native Lebanon, signing his work The Atlas Group and presenting it as a body of collective scholarship. More recently, a New York-based art collective known as the

Bruce High Quality Foundation The Bruce High Quality Foundation is an arts collective in Brooklyn, New York City, the United States, which was "created to foster an alternative to everything." The collective is made up of five to eight rotating and anonymous members, most or a ...

has seen considerable critical and commercial success. In November 2013, a silkscreen by these anonymous artists, "Hooverville," depicting the New York skyline with hobos, was auctioned for $425,000 at

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

New York. In an artistic intervention known as

culture jamming Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It at ...

, Wassmann has also intertwined his work with contemporary literary conceits. In 2006,

Rohan Kriwaczek Rohan Kriwaczek is an English writer, composer and violinist. He studied under Peter Maxwell Davies, Oliver Knussen and Judith Weir, and has written classical works, scores for theatre, TV, and radio. He worked with Ken Campbell in 1995 on a BBC ...

created a sensation with his publication of '' An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin'' (

Overlook Press The Overlook Press is an American publishing house based in New York, New York which considers itself "a home for distinguished books that had been 'overlooked' by larger houses". History and operations The Overlook Press was formed in 1971 by ...

), which purported to trace the lost history of the funerary violin. Shortly before publication, the book was exposed to the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' as a hoax by a book buyer at Prairie Lights Books in

Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City is the largest city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. At the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the population was 74,828, making it the state's List of cities in Iowa, fifth-most populous c ...

. Wassmann stepped in to confuse matters further by using an additional character, a German curator, to defend Kriwaczek in online literary blogs and discussion pages, claiming that as a child in Leipzig, August Wassmann (the character's father) had known one of the funerary violinists Kriwaczek cites, further proof of the funerary violin. Wassmann had been sent an advance copy of the book by the owner of Prairie Lights Books, Jim Harris, allowing him to comment with apparent authority on the book's contents prior to publication.

Legacy and influence

The character of Johann Dieter Wassmann was launched under the supposed auspices of the fictitious Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C., in the solo exhibition ''Bleeding Napoleon'' at the

Melbourne International Arts Festival Melbourne International Arts Festival, formerly Spoleto Festival Melbourne – Festival of the Three Worlds, then Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, becoming commonly known as Melbourne Festival, was a major international arts festi ...

2003. Since that time, the artist has created a rival institution vying to have the works of Johann Dieter Wassmann repatriated to Germany: MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. In the United States, Johann Dieter Wassmann is best known through a long-running Google

Adwords Google Ads, formerly known as Google Adwords, is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, and videos to web users. It can place ads in the res ...

campaign in the ''New York Times''. The ads, with politically charged entendres such as ''The Wassmann Foundation – art & philanthropy – forging a better tomorrow'', have received over nineteen million page-views in the newspaper's online Arts section. '' Art in America's'' Washington, D.C., correspondent, James Mahoney, has written, As the Wassmann Foundation and related characters have evolved, the project has come to function on three distinct levels. Firstly, the artist endeavours to scrutinise the ever-increasing presence of artist, curator and art institution alike, as

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

s. In establishing his own artist, curators and institutions as wholly fictitious, the contemporary artist is free to explore these roles as pure brand, existent for no other purpose than critical assessment. Secondly, the artist argues that the unresolved angst of our current age is the culmination of the mistakes of modernity. We catch a glimpse of this angst, as expressed by the sewerage engineer protagonist, before losing clarity to the mounting failures of the 20th and now 21st-centuries, distorting our anxieties beyond recognition. Lastly, on a third level, the project points up a certain paradox created by the proliferation of the worldwide-web: in a mass society, the individual grows in importance, rather than diminishes. For artists and individuals in what were formerly the planet's outer reaches, Wassmann has seen the web democratize access to the structures and machinations of power to an extent previously unimagined. He contends that little more than 25 years after the art world discovered there was an outside and a periphery, they suddenly find it is gone. In a

postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...

/internet age, there is only the center to be fought over and for the artist, the ensuing chaos to decipher. Where once the internet merely informed the political process, Wassmann has argued that the internet would, and now has developed the immense capability of wholly transforming political process. While projects such as Wassmann's function on a relatively benign level, he believes the realigned power structures they allude to allow individuals outside the arts to masterfully, and often frighteningly, alter the real world irretrievably.Wright, Lawrence
"The Terror Web: Were the Madrid bombings part of a new, far-reaching jihad being plotted on the Internet?"
''New Yorker'', August 2, 2004. Retrieved September 24, 2014.

Gallery

Assemblage boxes

File:Arteriae Pelvis, Abdomimis, et Pectoris, 1883 F.jpg, ''Arteriae Pelvis, Abdomimis, et Pectoris'', 1883. 70 x 55.5 x 8 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Foucault’s Pendulum, 1884 F.jpg, ''Foucault’s Pendulum'', 1884. 36 x 18.5 x 9 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:The Case of the City of London, 1894 F.jpg, ''The Case of the City of London'', 1894. 39.5 x 29.5 x 26 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:L'Hotel de Vie, 1886 F.jpg, ''L'Hotel de Vie'', 1886. 52 x 70 x 15.5 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Phrenology of the Brain, 1895 F.jpg, ''Phrenology of the Brain'', 1895. 36 x 30.5 x 9 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Trephining of the Skull, 1895 F.jpg , ''Trephining of the Skull'', 1895. 36 x 30.5 x 9 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Harmonisch, 1895 F.jpg, ''Harmonisch'', 1895. 14.5 x 14.5 x 7 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Prince Otto von Bismarck, 1896 F.jpg, ''Prince Otto von Bismarck'', 1896. 66 x 53 x 13 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Pipe, 1896 F.jpg, ''16969'', 1896. 38 x 28 x 10 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Appareil Auditif, 1896 F.jpg, ''Appareil Auditif'', 1896. 46 x 35 x 10 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:L’Hotel des Spheres, 1896 F.jpg, ''L’Hotel des Spheres'', 1896. 80 x 49 x 24 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Nebula, 1896 F.jpg, ''Nebula'', 1896. 17.5 x 17 x 11 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Nietzsche, 306P, 1897 F.jpg, ''Nietzsche, 306P'', 1897. 38 x 28 x 10 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Dasein (Being), 1897 F.jpg, ''Dasein (Being)'', 1897. 48 x 26 x 7 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Ehepaar (Married Couple), 1897 F.jpg, ''Ehepaar (Married Couple)'', 1897. 30.5 x 25 x 5.5 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Vorwarts! (Go Forward!), 1897 F.jpg, ''Vorwärts! (Go Forward!)'', 1897. 57.5 x 31 x 9.5 cm. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig.

Photography

File:Freundschaftstempel, Potsdam, 1896.jpg, ''Freundschaftstempel, Potsdam, 1896''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. File:1000 Oaks, 1897.jpg, ''1000 Oaks, 1897''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. File:Berlin, 1897.jpg, ''Berlin, 1897''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. File:Freyburg, 1897.jpg, ''Freyburg, 1897''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. File:Nikolaikirche, Leipzig, 1894.jpg, ''Nikolaikirche, Leipzig, 1894''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. File:Quedlinburg, 1897.jpg, ''Quedlinburg, 1897''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. File:Schloss Sanssouci, Potsdam, 1896.jpg, ''Schloss Sanssouci, Potsdam, 1896''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. File:Weinbergterrassen, Park Sanssouci, Potsdam, 1897.jpg, ''Weinbergterrassen, Park Sanssouci, Potsdam, 1897''. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cm. The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C.

Ephemera

File:Worn apothecare print.jpg, Worn apothecare print. French, 1870s. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Biedermeier snuff box.JPG, Biedermeier snuff box. German, 1840s. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Envelope to Anna Peterson.JPG, Envelope to Anna Peterson. Swedish, 1890s. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig. File:Swedish family death notice.JPG, Family death notice. Swedish, 1890s. MuseumZeitraum Leipzig.

References

External links

MuseumZeitraum blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wassmann, Johann Dieter Literary forgeries Nonexistent people used in hoaxes Hoaxes in Australia Fictional German people Fictional artists Fictional engineers