II. 2002 – 2008 Arbeitswelt in den USA - Tylle, H. D.

Wolfsburg Final Assembly” also seeks comparison with a famous picture of the past, Menzel’s “Iron
Rolling Mill”. If one counts the workers engaged there in various activities, one can see that that in
Tylle’s picture there are only a small number, who – compared with Menzel’s picture – are engaged
in work, supervision and rest.
The theme of another picture, painted in a newspaper printing facility, is the use of a large machine
that makes manual labor superfluous. The insertion of brochures, previously arduously performed by
hand, is now handled by the machine. The effects on the female workers are visible.
Tylle’s pictures present the experiences of the world of labor in concentrated form; the pictures are
important records of an intensive preoccupation with the problems of today’s industrial society. They
are not confined to a description of technical installations, but make the conditions under technical
domination visible. With urgency and conviction, Tylle addresses this subject-matter in very different
ways, without lapsing into the demonization or glorification of technology. Though hardly suitable for
company anniversaries, his pictures will still present a precise and lasting impression of the present
work situation in years to come. For contemporary painting, they will be important records.«
From the specialized point of view of the industrial archeologist, Rainer Slotta (Bochum; AK 1984/1;
reprinted in: AK 1988/1) describes the pictorial rediscovery of Ruhr mining and stresses the special
character of artistic documentation in Tylle’s pictures:
“After the Second World War, it was at first mainly the “Junger Westen” [Young West] group working
in North-Rhine/Westphalia’s Ruhr district, to which Gustav Deppe (born 1913), Günter Drebusch
(born 1925) and Thomas Grochowiak (born 1914) belonged, that again turned to artworks
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