Salomé, born Wolfgang Cihlarz in 1954, is a German painter associated with the Junge Wilden generation in West Berlin. Co-founder of Galerie am Moritzplatz, Kreuzberg (1977), with Rainer Fetting, Helmut Middendorf, and Bernd Zimmer. Represented since 1989 by Galerie Deschler, Berlin.
Studied 1973–1974 in the “Free Art Classes” of the Neukölln adult education center under Hans-Jürgen Diehl (student of Werner Heldt, Karl Hofer). Attended the Berlin University of the Arts 1974–1981, studying under Ulrich Knipping (student of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff) and Karl Heinz Hug, among others.
Known for 1980s paintings of male nudes in Neukölln, presented at various exhibitions in the 1980s. His approach was characterized by a “pink note” — deliberate, explicit playing outside the “roles of men” in his male nude representations, exceeding the mandate of representation suspected by other Junge Wilden painters.
Also known for concerts and performances in the punk band “Die Haut” (together with Christoph Dreher, Rainer Hülsebusch, Jochen Wiegand, Remo Park, and Jens Pěre Kunz).
Salomé’s work is one of the few examples of openly gay subject matter within the German Neo-Expressionist scene. Where the core generation (Baselitz, Kiefer, Lüpertz) treated masculinity as wound, burden, or heroic failure, Salomé treated it as erotic fact and social role — the “malerischen Rollenspiel” (pictorial role-play) that other Junge Wilden painted as heterosexual provocation.
See also
- Junge Wilden — the movement
- Rainer Fetting — fellow co-founder of Galerie am Moritzplatz
- The Pink Note — concept page for the deliberate queer register in Neo-Expressionism
- Galerie am Moritzplatz — the venue