Sculpture "So That You Couldn’t Steal Me" on Lubo Kristek’s atelier in Landsberg am Lech (1973) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
Lubo Kristek’s studio in Landsberg am Lech
The sculptor, painter and performance artist moved to Landsberg am Lech in the early 1970s (after his emigration from the Czechoslovakia in 1968). Hartfrid Neunzert, the emerite director of the Neues Stadtmuseum, remembers: ‘As his German studio, Lubo Kristek used a spacious former skittle in the town of Landsberg am Lech. On its highly visible front face, the artist fixed a torso of a man made of wood...
A few days later, the phone at the sculptor’s home rang and a conversation about art developed. The artist’s counterpart was explaining that in a Catholic town, such a torso resembled Christ and looked somewhat incomplete. Lubo Kristek spoke to the point and made clear how art may and must act, and that it was the very associations that served as a means to attract attention and evoke viewers’ reasoning. During the conversation, the counterpart showed an open mind and paid tribute to the artist.
At the end of the phone call, the artist asked: ‘And who’s calling?’
The answer was Hanns Hamberger, Landsberg town mayor.
The artist thanked him for the discussion and said: ‘I am Lubo Kristek from Czechoslovakia and I am going to undertake plenty of things in the future that will encourage people to discuss.’
This is exactly what was fulfilled during the following thirty years, including the chains that the artist used to fix the torso to the wall of the building, with an explanatory notice: Damit Du mich nicht klauen kannst (So That You Could Not Steal Me).
As is always the case for Kristek, the name of the artwork should lead to contemplation, doubts and one’s own thinking.’
(end of quotation from Hartfrid Neunzert)
Article ‘Chains Both as Bonds and Protection’
On 7 December 1973, the Landsberger Tagblatt periodical published an article ‘Chains Both as Bonds and Protection’ (the original title was ‘Ketten als Fesseln und Schutz’) on page 26. The article provides a deep contextual analysis: ‘The inhabitants of Landsberg who, be it on foot or by car, will visit Kasernenberg notice a remarkable change of the old skittle on the premises of the former Zederbräu cellar...
Sculpture "So That You Couldn’t Steal Me" on Lubo Kristek’s atelier in Landsberg am Lech (1973) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
On the half-timbered construction, there now hangs a larger-than-life-sized torso, fixed with heavy chains at five points. Instead of a head, a sphere is dangling above the body carved out of wood. Above the creepy human figure with cut-off hands and legs, doomful clouds are gathering. On its chest, the figure bears a sign with a succinct inscription: ‘So That You Could Not Steal Me’.
5 Minutes to 12 (1972) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
With this, the creator of this artwork, sculptor and painter Lubo Kristek (30) who came to Landsberg from Czechoslovakia, recalls the history of the sculpture. In fact, Kristek had already conceived artistically the front wall of the skittle that serves as his studio, yet a stranger damaged this work, deliberately stealing some of its parts.
Sculpture "So That You Couldn’t Steal Me" on Lubo Kristek’s atelier in Landsberg am Lech (1973) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
Lubo Kristek’s ‘visiting card’ on the front facade brings about all types of associations for the viewer: A sphere swinging to and fro in the wind resembles medieval gallows, the beams in the wall of the half-timbered building marking the boundary of a darkcoloured surface evoke huge bars of a prison; while the body itself is mutilated and covered with scratches. It evokes the ideas of torture, imprisonment, the greatest human suffering and the nakedness and impotence of a person left at the mercy of fate.
Suddenly, one recognizes Prometheus chained to a rock, or a totally fatigued convict; and finally it could cross your mind that the beams of the half-timbered building form a type of cross, on which a chained figure of the Crucified is hanging in a lamentable state.
Why such a portrayal of the deepest human suffering in our social and prospering society? Especially nowadays, we are threatened more than ever before by aggression and violence, whether committed on the small or the big ones. In our supposedly civilized and human world, isn’t there still more torture and cruel killing, imprisonment and wars? We read and hear about it every day.
Aren’t we totally mutilated as well, doesn’t technology serve to enslave people, to convert them into mental and spiritual amputees whose heads are only swinging to and fro in the wind of consumerism, spiritual lethargy and mental impoverishment? Haven’t we also been chained for a long time like this figure, aren’t we the slaves of an unpredictable power who, without receiving help, are left at the mercy of the worst menaces?
The artist openly admits he is afraid. Can mankind still be saved and is salvation possible at all? With his artwork, the artist puts a barrier to all myopic optimism. Through painting and sculpture, he warns us: ‘It could soon be too late!’ He named the artwork that was here before ‘5 Minutes to 12’. It was destroyed. In this regard, the piece that Kristek created in its place could have been named ‘Midnight’.’
(end of quotation from the article ‘Chains Both as Bonds and Protection’)
The Second Life of the Artwork
The assemblage So That You Could Not Steal Me, which caused such a stir in the 1970s in Landsberg, made a pilgrimage to Podhradí nad Dyjí, Czech Republic where it is part of the collection of Lubo Kristek’s oeuvre. Its historical frequencies have now been adding sound permanently to the strings of the genius loci of the place.
Before the assemblage took pride of place on the walls of the Chateau Lubo, it was the central point of Kristek’s night film happening at the ruins of the Freistein Castle in Podhradí nad Dyjí, named Psychedelic, Galactic-Irrational Mythologic Midnight Dinner.
The Presage of Cosmic-Genetic Congenialness with a Time-Predetermined Climax of Love (1996) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
The artist then incorporated the scenes from this event into his painting The Presage of Cosmic-Genetic Congenialness with a Time-Predetermined Climax of Love.
On 1 October 1996, the Rovnost periodical published an article ‘Lubo Kristek’s Midnight Dinner’ about this surreal night event:
‘The central idea of the artist’s dreamy frequencies was the cycle of aging and the period of extinction, portrayed as the creation of an artwork along its inverted trajectory backwards, so that a place for a new quality to be born would become empty in the natural course.
The night scene lit with candles was dominated by the symbolism of vain terrestrial self indulgence. On an abundantly set overflowing table...
... under the half of the tower cut off by merciless time. Above, one of the earlier master’s artworks was swaying, the torso of Prometheus, a symbol of human struggle with gods.
Psychedelic, Galactic-Irrational Mythologic Midnight Dinner (1996) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
Little by little, it was disappearing before one’s eyes in the inverted course of creation and, clouded over with black, it blended with the universe.
A goblin, barely one-fourth-of-a-man high, was holding a bucket of black paint to the brush placed on a cripple’s crutch. The model, dressed only in her bronze skin, assisted in her birthday suit, watering both master’s soul and mouth with a split watermelon.
Psychedelic, Galactic-Irrational Mythologic Midnight Dinner (1996) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
The slender white ballet dancer, young and fresh midnight dancing fairy, transformed herself before one’s eyes, like darkness devouring Prometheus, into a sturdy aging Gradiva. Her dress overflowing with flash seemed to withhold at its last gasp her body growing fat. Under the brim of a flimsy skirt, it was only a large bottom that remained from her being, until it disappeared shortly as well through the thicket of disability crutches, illuminated only by small flames of candles scattered on a slope.
Psychedelic, Galactic-Irrational Mythologic Midnight Dinner (1996)Research Institute of Communication in Art
The dinner in the title of Kristek’s visions was mainly intellectual nourishment, since with the exception of a watermelon, the master didn’t touch the consumer delights being offered neither with his mouth nor with his mind. As he admitted himself after the night spectacle, watermelon was his favourite fruit.
Ultramusicality of Melon (1992) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
Watermelon, as a symbol of fertility, has a firm place in Lubo Kristek’s dreamlike images, just like the piano and lately also a nun.’
(end of quotation from the article ‘Lubo Kristek’s Midnight Dinner’)
So That You Could Not Steal Me So That You Could Not Steal Me (1973) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
The assemblage So That You Could Not Steal Me has found its place final at the Chateau Lubo in Podhradi nad Dyjí, Czech Republic.
Sources:
Fischer, S., Neunzert, H., Půtová, B: Lubo Kristek – Genius Loci Cobwebbed. Brno: RICA, 2019.
Jurák, P.: ‘Lubo Kristek’s Midnight Dinner’, Rovnost. Brno, 1 October 1996, p. 13.
‘Ketten als Fesseln und Schutz’, Landsberger Tagblatt. Landsberg am Lech, 7 December 1973, p. 26
English translation: Renáta Sobolevičová
Acknowledgements:
Petr Jurák
Mediengruppe Pressedruck Dienstleistungs-GmbH & Co. OHG
Hartfrid Neunzert
Jürg Rot
Dušan Rouš
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