“I have an important question! What actually was the Big Bang?” With this pragmatic query of his 10-year-old granddaughter, Arik Brauer begins a further artistic examination of the Old Testament. Even if the Biblical tradition is not compatible with the Big Bang Theory, the Bible for him is a “millennial-spanning art work of grandiose poetry and timeless wisdom,” which inspired him to sixty formidable pencil drawings.
Accompanying these illustrations and at the risk of getting crucified, ending up at the stake or being excluded from the Jewish Community of Vienna, Arik Brauer gives a new twist to the Old Testament. In the tradition of great Jewish satirists such as Ephraim Kishon, he describes the Banishment of Adam and Eve from Paradise, the Deluge, the Sacrifice of Isaac, the story of Joseph and His Brothers, the Lives of the Prophets and much more.
Arik Brauer, born in 1929 in Vienna, does not see himself solely as a painter, but also as an architect, a graphic artist, stage author, poet, songwriter and chanson singer. Brauer is the son of a Jewish shoemaker who was murdered in a concentration camp; he himself survives, provided for by neighbors, in a hiding place. After the war, the young Brauer joined the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ), but, soon disappointed, turned away from the Communist movement. He studies until 1951 at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts; Brauer is a co-founder of the world famous “Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.” His singing career reaches its peak in the 1970s. In 1979 the first major retrospective of his work takes place; in 1982 several travelling exhibitions through the USA follow. From 1985 to 1997 he is a professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He is the bearer of the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art and the Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Province of Vienna. Arik Brauer lives with his wife in Vienna.
Advance booking requested: Tel.: +43 1 535 04 31-110 or e-mail: events@jmw.at.
Free admission from 6:45 p.m.
Photo (c) Amalthea
Accompanying these illustrations and at the risk of getting crucified, ending up at the stake or being excluded from the Jewish Community of Vienna, Arik Brauer gives a new twist to the Old Testament. In the tradition of great Jewish satirists such as Ephraim Kishon, he describes the Banishment of Adam and Eve from Paradise, the Deluge, the Sacrifice of Isaac, the story of Joseph and His Brothers, the Lives of the Prophets and much more.
Arik Brauer, born in 1929 in Vienna, does not see himself solely as a painter, but also as an architect, a graphic artist, stage author, poet, songwriter and chanson singer. Brauer is the son of a Jewish shoemaker who was murdered in a concentration camp; he himself survives, provided for by neighbors, in a hiding place. After the war, the young Brauer joined the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ), but, soon disappointed, turned away from the Communist movement. He studies until 1951 at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts; Brauer is a co-founder of the world famous “Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.” His singing career reaches its peak in the 1970s. In 1979 the first major retrospective of his work takes place; in 1982 several travelling exhibitions through the USA follow. From 1985 to 1997 he is a professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He is the bearer of the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art and the Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Province of Vienna. Arik Brauer lives with his wife in Vienna.
Advance booking requested: Tel.: +43 1 535 04 31-110 or e-mail: events@jmw.at.
Free admission from 6:45 p.m.
Monday, 19 Mar 19:00,
Museum Dorotheergasse
Photo (c) Amalthea
