Charles Wilp (*15 Sept 1932 in Witten; † 2 Jan 2005 in Düsseldorf) began his wide-ranging career, be it as an advertising guru, artonaut or super-artist, in any case as a photographer. As a student, he was already drawn to Paris with his camera, where he was hired by the legendary Daniel Filipacchi for Paris Match, LUI and LOOK and became Man Ray's assistant.

Back in Germany, he joined the newly forming, rebellious art of the 1960s around Zero, Yves Klein and Joseph Beuys in Düsseldorf ("Dazzeldorf. My Island - Suburb of the World"). Wilp created his very own extended concept of art. Advertising campaigns, fashion, space travel, photography and travel reports were all part of art for him as a matter of course. Like everything else that Wilp "The Yellow Genius" created. In Düsseldorf, he became part of a generation of artists who, like Andy Warhol in New York, increasingly discovered film and photography as a contemporary medium of artistic expression and incorporated them into the art context as a matter of course.

Wilp, four years younger than Warhol and Paik, two years older than Hilla Becher and Christo, twelve than Katharina Sieverding and Candida Höfer, must be seen anew today as an artist who, starting from photography and film, developed an understanding of art that transcended genres and did not want to enclose art, but to liberate it.

When the hippie trail turned towards India, Charles Wilp also set off from Düsseldorf in 1977, overcoming his immense fear of flying to visit the newly revived ashrams in India. Under the expert guidance of Saraswati Albano-Müller, an Indian woman living in Germany, Wilp finds access to numerous ashrams (Engl. "place of effort"). Saraswati organises the trip and opens the doors, Wilp travels with a photo camera and film team. The result is the photo book Freiheit Empfinden - an "optical essay", a "trend observation", as Wilp says.

It was not only low drug prices and the prospect of an extremely cheap life at that time that led to the movement. The great attraction of oriental mysticism and a religiously motivated search for meaning in the traditional rites and customs of Hinduism and Buddhism were also attractive. The dream of individual freedom, peace and love could, for the time being, only be lived away from Western civilisation.

For the first time, the Weltkunstzimmer presents the unique photographic documents of this early journey to India and establishes the connection with the departure of those years to the East.

The photographs are generously provided by the estate of Charles Wilp (Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth). The exhibition, which takes place within the framework of the Düsseldorf Photo Festival, is curated by Carl Friedrich Schröer.

Charles Paul Wilp worked as a photographer and director of short films, was an internationally sought-after advertising expert ("Sexy-mini-super-flower-pop-cola - everything is in Afri-Cola"), artist and "artronaut", combining art, science and advertising.

Saraswati Albano-Müller, born Sundaram in Benares as the daughter of one of Gandhi's associates, studied child psychology in London. She later founded a kindergarten in Schwelm (NRW), the "Colloquium Feminarum", the "Jugendförderungswerk e.V." and the "Philosophische Gastmahle".

The book: Wilp, Charles; Saraswati, "Wege zur Selbstverwirklichung. Meditation in India", Dortmund, Munich, Gesellschaft für Umweltgestaltung, 1978.