“It wouldn't have happened without him,” says the director. And he means that the muse is celebrated from Saturday onwards. One of its “founding fathers”: Manfred Deeks. It must have been exhibited elsewhere at the turn of the millennium.
If not the Governor of Lower Austria (Erwin Proll) said he should go to Lower Austria. Manfred and Marietta Deeks insisted that the related house be designed by another exceptional Austrian cartoonist: Gustav Beichl.
“Our Fun House” Since 2001, Krems has not been the only one on the Art Mile. From today it is in one of the showcases on the ground floor. With “Gusty” and “Freddy”.
Also: with 160 other originals from this same “Freddy” (ie: Manfred Deeks). “I Love Deeks” is the name of the related show, Cartoon Museum Director Gottfried Kusenbauer Along with the Caricature Museum Curator Anna Steinmeier “Extraordinary Artist” (semi) round put together for birthday. And, according to Gusenbauer, it should also be “a declaration of love from us to him.”
Evergreens and “Favorite Themes” by the St. Bolton-born Weidlinger, who painted for “Playboy” and “Die Zeit,” are to be found there, most from the state collections of Lower Austria, but also some from private lenders and Deeks – the widow Marietta. But you can see very early things (like a sweating sauna user in ink and pencil in 1971/72) and very late things (like paintings of a pink woman or a bare bottom from 2013).
The early saunist is in one of the 21 drawers of the Deix archive, newly saved for the birthday show. and a “cat king” and a “cat princess” who were shown with a blood-red crown gracefully waved in bronze.
Cats and dogs, Easter bunnies and high heels, “light men” and “beach babies”, “fallen people” and budding careerists, charlatans and chain smokers surround it next and around. And a lot of “nose people” – in paintings and watercolors, collages and drawings.
There are photos and anecdotes, a fax to Robert Crumb and a letter to Gottfried Helnwein, a full animal on his shoulder and the Beach Boys on his chest (from 1996), some important opening sentences (“It's so cruel”), some important quotes to read (Helnwein and Nitsch, Thomas Maurer and Lukas Resetarits, from Hella von Sinnen and Manfred Deix).
My art is to make fun of people! Manfred Deeks
Also worth seeing: “Excursion” to Wuppertal native and Carinthian artist Werner Berg. Excerpts, some voices, and “Creation” from the 2021 Posthumous Animation Deeks movie “Roadspub”.
Also: The “Palace of the Winds,” built by Manfred Deeks in 1987 for Andre Heller's “Luna Luna” project, according to “Palace of the Winds,” his “craziest project” is now “in a container” 40 years before it was purchased by a rapper. , now back in Los Angeles. “They are also going on a world tour,” dreams the Krems museum director, “maybe they will come to Krems too!”
Today, Saturday, the opening ceremony is celebrated in Krems Museum Square. With friends and comrades, the “Founding Fathers” and Marietta Deeks. Also: lots of deeks with hearts – “for all the brave” and as a tattoo for initiation.
