Olaf Wegewitz - Geradewegs

What is Germany like, how long, how big, and how diverse? Olaf Wegewitz, an artist, natural philosopher, and poet, set out in the summer of 2009 to pursue answers to these questions. His route took him 1340 kilometers along the 11th line of longitude, from Fehmarn by the Baltic Sea to the Zugspitze, Germanys highest mountain. Olaf Wegewitz surveyed the country physically and artistically, along with its flora and fauna, and then captured his impressions in a 100-meter-long painting. The book shows the complete sequence of this fascinating painting, presenting coasts, lakes and rivers, meadows, forests and mountains, fields and villages along the way. Using delicate, gestural, expressive, dramatic, and concentrated strokes of the brush, Olaf Wegewitz paints a picture of Germany as we have never seen it before, with a close-up view of its landscape and nature, and what this may mean for our future. Apart from presenting the whole painting, the book contains a number of sketches, frottages made on walks, poetic texts, and an interview with the artist.

Annegret Laabs / Uwe Gellner