Die furchtbare Riesen=Brunst Deer Riesen=Stadt, Mutter=Kohrn,=Ost=Wand=Hall 1922

This drawing, "Die furchtbare Riesen=Brunst Deer Riesen=Stadt, Mutter=Kohrn,=Ost=Wand=Hall," was made by Adolf Wölfli, though we're unsure exactly when. Look at how the entire sheet is filled edge to edge with teeming forms and patterns. I can imagine Wölfli bent over this piece, obsessively marking and hatching, his inner world spilling out in hallucinatory detail. Those towers, those faces staring out, all rendered with such care and precision! What could he have been thinking when he made this? Maybe he felt compelled to create his own cosmos, a kind of parallel universe where the normal rules don't apply. The colors are subdued – mostly reds, browns, and yellows – but the intensity is turned up to eleven. And that strange combination of geometric structure and chaotic imagery? It's almost like he's mapping out a city that exists only in his mind. Wölfli’s work is a reminder that art can come from anywhere and be a kind of ongoing conversation through time. It can be a place to explore all the ambiguities and uncertainties of our world.