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Crashing down …
The late Walter Wegmüller’s version of The Tower, from his 1982 Neuzeit (New Age) Tarot, gives a trippy spin on the card denoting destruction and sudden change. The all-seeing eye of providence – and dollar bill iconography – shoots lightning down on a tower-cum-hungry monster. Its exposed brains are a grey metropolis of whirring cogs, high-rises with outsized TV antennae and polluting factory chimneys. The base is a heap of eggs, the age-old symbol of rebirth. The red tongue recalls the Rolling Stones’ “tongue and lips” logo.
Charmed circle …
What can be instantly divined is that Wegmüller’s sensibility was steeped in 1960s and 70s counterculture. Of Roma heritage and based in Switzerland, he was an intriguing figure in a local hippy circle that included the acid guru Timothy Leary, in exile after fleeing prison in the United States, the mystic Sergius Golowin and the artist HR Giger, who created the visuals for the film Alien.
Good vibes …
All of them were drawn into the krautrock scene when the head of Ohr Records, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, showed up looking for prescient voices for a new label, Cosmic Couriers. It birthed a string of seriously cult albums, with of-the-moment ideas chanted to far-out jams by German prog rock’s finest. Leary aired his thoughts on Ash Ra Tempel’s Seven Up, for which Wegmüller created artwork. Wegmüller soon followed suit. As a student of tarot, he mined his cultural heritage to create a Gypsy pack and he describes each card on the album Tarot. It featured contributions from the likes of Ash Ra Tempel and Wallenstein.
Signs of the times …
Today, the tower as a sign of unforeseen disaster is written into our cultural consciousness. Wegmüller’s inclusion of a passenger plane heading for his industrialised edifice gives it a further eerie twist.
Tarot: A Visual History is published 7 July by Taschen
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