FOR RUTH, THE SKY IN LOS ANGELES
Kathleen Reinhardt

David Horvitz and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt are generations apart, but their ideas of art are very closely related. The American artist visited Wolf-Rehfeldt in Berlin while conducting research in 2014 and discovered her 1970s’ “typewritings” in her archive: graphic works that she had used for her mail art and sent out to the world from East Berlin. Horvitz was instrumental in the rediscovery of Wolf-Rehfeldt’s outstanding work, which was also honoured at documenta 14 (2017). The two have been exchanging ideas ever since they first met, even though the 87-year-old has not worked artistically in the post-GDR period. Horvitz invited her to use a disposable camera to record images of her house and garden and, in return, he photographed his studio in Los Angeles. These snapshots and dialogues, as well as his text-based watercolours—such as For Ruth, the sky in los angeles and For Ruth, the wind to you—which were sent via mail art and often simply addressed to “Ruth – Berlin”, document their ongoing correspondence.