WEBVTT - generated by VCS

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I think that’s always the case. Also today,

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if you manage to establish a relationship with
the right people.

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That’s always by chance,

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you cannot aim for that,

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coincidence and luck come to the aid.

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And by chance, I met Richard Christ,

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a writer, who was allowed travel

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and wrote books about it and his role was possibly

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to allow the people in the GDR to travel the
world via his books.

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And I had made friends with him.

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He was a really great guy.

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And through him I came to India.

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He named me as the partner,

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at the Ministry of Culture, which he needed
for the trip.

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He said he always went with Karl Erich Müller,
the painter from Halle,

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but he was an old gentleman now.

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And to go to India you had to be of good health.

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And he couldn't do that anymore.

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And Richard Christ said, I have to travel with
people,

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who have eyes, who are painters or work in
the visual arts.

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And yeah, that was my first trip....

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And it was great too, because he was kind of
my guide.

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He introduced me to the specifics, and

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well, I have to say, that as a child, of course,

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I had read a lot and

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I had traveled the world with Ibn Battūta
and Marco Polo

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and so India was familiar to me, if you will.

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But it was clear, of couse, that it was further
than the moon, that I would never actually
get there.

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And then they said: It could work out.

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And it actually did. It was my great luck

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to delve into another culture,

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which is completely foreign, but fantastic.

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And then, at the same time, the dirt, the misery,
the smell.

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So that was a

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mix, a cocktail, which was quite hard to digest...

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But as I said, it was for me–

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It is true that it came a little late

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in my life, I was then in my mid-40s.

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One should probably have done a trip like that
in one’s early 30s,

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because they enrich the personality.

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The experiences you make are very important.

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And they were also very important for me, also
for many decisions,

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which I then made later.

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I had had a number of exhibitions, but with
him I had,

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well, I would say an almost friendly relationship.

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He appreciated me and he knew about my work.

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He visited me here and was very interested
in things,

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he himself used to be the ambassador, or at
the embassy in

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Pakistan,

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and Richard Christ was friends with him.

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He had arranged that, too.

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So, that was a very good, friendly relationship
and that was

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the catalyst, so to speak.

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But he had no sway over these other things.

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I had tried to bring Richard Christ along again,

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because I had to transport the entire exhibition.

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So, in Crivitz, there was

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a sheet metal company, they built me a

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metal case for my artwork, but it was almost
a hundredweight.

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And if you have to handle that as well as your
luggage,

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in India, where you're sort of....

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You step out of the

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inside of the airport and there are 100 people
standing there, grabbing your stuff

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for baksheesh [a tip], which you then have
to pay.

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And it happens in the blink of an eye.

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And with the really

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ridiculously small amounts of money, which
one had then, you’d run out quickly.

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You can't afford that at all,

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to pay for carriers.

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Well... Yes, and on the second trip, of course,
I got to know

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some artists through the Indian cultural authority,
which supported me.

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After I had returned,

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the employee at

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the Ministry of Culture said: “We should
really organize something,

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we have this cultural agreement [Kulturvertrag]

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and none of it gets to be experienced by artists
at all.”

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And that's when I suggested that we could organize
a workshop.

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And he said: “sure, do it!” We were still
using formal form of adress then.

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So then listed the Indian painter colleagues
I knew

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and then it was organized.

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With regards to the GDR colleagues, I had no
influence over who was chosen to participate

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But we were four or five colleagues and three
Indian colleagues and

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they selected the town of Dümmer near Schwerin.

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There [was] one of these homes run by the VdgB,
i.e. the

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Peasants Mutual Aid Organization,

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that is, a vacation home,

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and that was, for the 14 days that we worked
together,

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or three weeks, I don't even remember, made
available to us.

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And that was actually a great time, a great
event.

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Yes, and

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then we made an exhibition in Schwerin

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with the results of this plein-air.

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And I, of course...

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I was sort of the leader of this workshop and

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I organized excursions, of course.

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We went to Wismar, looked at the Brick Gothic
there,

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we were in Güstrow, in the castle and in the
city.

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We were in Ludwigslust in the castle and in
the park

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and, of course, in Schwerin.

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And I also went with them

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to different studios of colleagues,

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to give them a little bit of a feeling

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for this country.

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And I think that worked out.

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For example Rainer Herold, who lives in Pütte
near Stralsund.

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I knew him from my studies,

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he finished three years before me.

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Matthias Krüger, that was a colleague from
Berlin.

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Siegenbug from Leipzig.

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Him, I didn’t know.

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And another photographer. He is a professor
now,

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I can’t think of his name right now.

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We were really just a small group.

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Yes, and the interesting thing was... So, as
I said, I had resigned my position,

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and in 1989, in the spring, we had the return
visit to India,

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and the whole GDR group was allowed to travel
to India.

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And it was clear to me,

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with my rebellious attitude, I was risking
the trip.

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But I was still allowed to travel,

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was even the head of the delegation.

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Only, the Indians had not involved “our”
Indian colleagues

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in this second part of the exchange, but different
ones.

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We still met them, though, in Delhi,

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our three colleagues and

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also celebrated with them.

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Here in Dümmer, too, we had held

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an Indian festival, because the villagers had
noticed that

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there was something very “crazy” going
on with artists and Indians

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and Jatin Das

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from New Delhi, he was sort of in charge of
it,

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he cooked and we chopped things and created.

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And it was great.

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We had a seven course meal and we had involved
and invited

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the people from the village who had supported
us,

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while we were going through the village looking
for motifs to draw and paint,

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and we also invited colleagues, artists and
so on from the city of Schwerin.

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And that was actually quite exciting.

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And then we also had the plein air in Lucknow,
in northern India,

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and we also made excursions, to Varanasi.

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But by ourselves. The Indian colleagues didn't
come along.

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Even though they had, I think, involved 20
artists,

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with whom we had relatively little contact.

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We did work together in a large studio, but

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one could only form a closer relationship with
a few of them.

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What we managed to do, although not within
the workshop,

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instead we met them by chance

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at the Indian cultural office...

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So, K. V. Haridasan from southern India.

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A very, very pleasant person.

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And Mario Miranda,

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from Goa, who had also

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lived in Bombay,

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he had an apartment there.

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And we kind of had problem on our return trip,
I remember,

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so we had to go to Bombay and then

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visited Mario in Bombay and Jatin Das in Delhi.

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So, we saw each other and gave each other a
hug,

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and that was good,

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but we did not work together,

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like we did here [in the GDR], where we had
really spent 14 days living together.

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I know that there was a more active exchange
with other socialist countries.

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I participated in such plein-airs in Poland
and

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in Bulgaria.

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And I must say, these were always very

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productive, harmonious meetings,

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which also gave me strength

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and a little bit of that, which was missing
here [in the GDR]:

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a connection to the rest of the world.

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It counteracted this deficit

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and one could just talk with others, we communicated
well with them.

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We learned Russian in school,

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I could speak that.

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I was able to communicate in Russian quite
well

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and with English too.

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So it worked out with these two languages.

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Yeah, it wasn't as exotic

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as Westerners could travel.

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But when I think about how people go to, let’s
say,

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the Maldives and have no connection to it,
then that’s nonsense.

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We travelled in a completely different way,

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we were open, we were curious.

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Yes, and this...

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You go there and are like an open book.

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You're soaking it up, even though, after a
short time, you’re familiar with all of it.

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So, you think, well yes,

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it’s a palm tree. Sure.

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It's standing there.

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While when you see it for the first time it’s:
Wow, look!

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But after three days it is completely normal.

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And that is, of course, an experience, which
is quite important

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and you then develop a connection to it.

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And if you can afford all that for yourself,
and say:

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“Where should we travel this time, where
have we not been yet? Why don’t we do that
place sometime?”

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But you don’t really read up on the place
beforehand.

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That was different then.

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Before I went to India, I really occupied myself
intesively with it.

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I tried learn the things I wanted to see by
heart,

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and still did not quite manage it.

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Yes, but as I said,

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that also lasted for quite a while,

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even after 1990,

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when I could then travel to Florence and Rome.

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It was the same then,

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this great curiosity, also the admiration

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for the things one sees there, which are strange,

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that one absorbs,

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which one enjoys.

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Yes, that's...

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Even if it was sometimes quite intense,

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in India with temperatures, where you think,
that you’ll go nuts.

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You get off the plane and think: “what’s
this”?

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Well, it's 40 degrees Celsius.

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And well, you

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have to cope with all that. And you learn how
to cope with that

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and you end up being enriched.