Wolfgang Stoerchle

Wolfgang Eberhard Stoerchle (born Störchle; January 17, 1944 – March 14, 1976) was a German-American conceptual artist known for influential performance and video works made in Southern California in the 1970s.

Early life and education Stoerchle was born in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany, during World War II. He moved with his family to Toronto, Ontario, Canada as a teenager in 1959. In 1962, he spent ten months riding through the United States on horseback with his brother, Peter, arriving in Los Angeles and living there in 1963–64. He became a naturalized citizen in Oklahoma.

Career In 1970, he began teaching in the Post-Studio Art program at California Institute of the Arts, where his fellow instructors included Allan Kaprow and Nam June Paik.

In 1972, Stoerchle made a controversial performance at the Pomona College Museum of Art in which he urinated on a rug in the gallery. Backlash to the performance from the college's more socially conservative administration led to a mass resignation of the art faculty.