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 Antonio Caputo - 2010 Gianni Moneta - 1984 Heinz von Cramer - 2000 Herbert Pagani - 1976 Lothar Fischer - 2010 Paolo Rizzi - 1990 Pubblio Dal Soglio - 1987 Toni Kienlechner - 1984 Toni Kienlechner - 1986 Toni Kienlechner - 1988 Testimonianze visitatori - 1990 Testimonianze visitatori - 1991 |
Heinz von Cramer wrote about him in 2000
london@duellmemorial.com
Devademecum - or rather a real attempt at instructions for mis-use. I. What is it about? Yes, but what is it about? About art presumably. Whenever something is exhibited in public, be it painting, poetry or music, there must always be a fig leaf to cover any possible nudity. But where lies the art remains the great enigma. I do not know; and so far no one has been able to enlighten me. I only know for certain that it is a sort of safe-conduct for eternity that every epoch gives to its illusionists and fools and which can not always be renewed and sometimes expires very rapidly. Very few have an unlimited pass that saves them from the jaws of time.-a Bach, a Raphael, a Goethe.
Can their greatest, immortal works tell us what art really is? Surely-it is clear; it is something very serious, as noble as it is miserable,as long as it is wide, a phenomenon of mankind,a world spectacle, moving and purifying,sometimes even a bit monotonous;it releases and spreads glories of boredom. However it’s no joke-either for its creator or for his entourage. They both have to work hard, to sweat it out, for whoever never bathed his bread with tears will never be worthy of the illumination of the true essence of art. And so, should art represent then a sort of sanctification of the human imagination-a sort of church, a cathedral, in which the creative faculty can celebrate its own mass?
II. What do we really see?A gallery-right?-no doubt about that. Really an art gallery. It is here that we have just made our digression. And on the wall are pictures bursting with images fit to split their frames; and yet this amazing licentiousness is signed: Heinz J. Duell. A terrible suspicion arises: can this Heinz J. Duell have had great pleasure in violating such candid surfaces, despoiling them of their innocence? Can he even have imagined the observer enjoying such lustfulness? Here and there, confusion, the head whirls; the reliefs of Indian temples come to mind,the excesses of the Baroque
But in the end, what has excess got to do with art? Art should aspire to measure in all things-but if you couldn’t care less? If it’s only a game which you play or you don’t, a tricky game, a surprise game, that everyone can play? A game of ‘Snakes and Ladders' das Gansespiel, “Don’t get mad.” You throw the dice and jump forward one, or you throw the dice and you’re out: one knocks the other out and moves to a waiting position.At best you stand ready for one of the riddles and to start the quest, come what may.The risk is always there!
III. How do we usually behave?The last century taught us to take in a picture at a single glance-the general impression was what was most important. Then, if interested in painting, the observer took in the details and concentrated on the particulars of the composition and the application of colour, but without losing the sense of the work’s unity.More or less the same thing happened with Renaissance and Baroque painting. Instead, in the Middle Ages a picture was more something to be read like a book, each component had a heraldic, symbolic, allegorical or theological meaning which all together gave a sense of the spiritual rather than the pictorial, although the vocabulary was for the most part rigidly codified.
Today only a few are able to decipher these messages,the rest of us are satisfied with the aesthetic effect which, if measured against the original intention, remains merely a side effect. English translation by Vivienne Mura |