Despite his discovery of individuals having different concepts of what constitutes “order”, Wehrli’s “tidying up” allows him to see how people view hierarchy and the (re)creation of structure. Having applied this process to famous works of art by Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee (to name a few), the TYPO audience were treated with before & after photographs of Wehrli’s work that were hilarious, intriguing, and inspiring. But why stop at famous works of art? Wehrli then continued to show the audience how he implemented this “tidying up” to classical sheet music (by Beethoven), audible notes (by Morricone) and even to song lyrics (“Yesterday” by the Beatles), which he impressively displayed by reciting all of the words in the song in alphabetic order by memory.

Even more impressive, however, was the fact that none of Wehrli’s work was created by any sort of technological trickery. No photoshop here. Even his work with the parking lot, in which he reorganized a lot full of cars by their color value, was done physically and painstakingly … but not without fun.

And that is one of the main messages that comes through from this charmingly quirky man, fun. The entire process of cleaning up art might exemplify neurosis at its finest, but there is no better way to treat this type of artistic neurosis than with a smile and appreciation.

Text — Diana Won