The Jackpot

Interested in creating artwork that is worth a lot? And by the way experience a totally absurd odyssey? Take a leaf out of painter, sculptor, and stage designer Oskar Schlemmer's book.

First off you’ll need a fantastic artistic idea (stage, room, body, movement).

Internalise your vision (art figure) and paint it (half-length figure).

Experiment boldly (stage: Pole Dance, Triadic Ballet) ...

... get other people excited about it (stage workshop) and give a course (The Human Being) at some posy pioneering art school (Bauhaus).

Become a hipster (Bauhaus master, 1921–29), with your own town house (master’s house, totally stylish: steel, glass, concrete)!

Now bring out one of your first pictures (gouache drawing, 1923, finely-graded play of colours, melodic, with no gravity) and donate it for the next tombola (Bauhaus party, Dessau, 1929, huge hit!)

Hope that your (no sex!) best girlfriend (Gunta Stölzl, textile designer, junior master) hits the jackpot in the draw and wins – your picture.

Don’t lose sight of your girlfriend – or your picture – when first you, right after the party it feels like, (in 1929 for Breslau) and then she (in 1931 for Zurich) leaves the city taking your picture with her.

If everything gets a bit complicated (children, war, career) ...

... stay calm ...

… for, well, um ... just a few years, and then a few more, and then some ...

... and then, when you’ve totally forgotten about your picture ...

… or, sorry, you’ve been dead for years ...

… and so has your girlfriend …

… then along come the heirs …

… and your picture is finally shown in a major gallery (1990, Bröhan) ...

… and then sold at a legendary auction house (1991, Sotheby’s) ...

... and a public authority (federal state of Saxony-Anhalt) that didn’t even exist in your day, acquires your drawing for millions!!! of dollars ...

... and finally makes a gift!!! of it (1994) to the school you attended once (Bauhaus Dessau), which is then a Foundation and preens itself on your name ...

... and where you donated your picture for an amazing party.

Crazy!