A Strange Kind of Love

ENGLISH TRANSLATION IN ITALICS BELOW

Doaa Eladl: Art Dictator Industry, October 27, 2013.
- to be read from the right, do we want to worship the gods we created ourselves?
- but if read from the left, perhaps a fitting morale...

Af PER ARNOLDI

Kære Ven,
Du spørger, efter vores TV udsendelse igår aftes,  hvad jeg har imod Richard Winthers hus, nu åbnet som museum i Vindeby på Lolland???
Det lugter!!!
Det kan jeg ikke lide!
For det lugter ikke godt for fremtiden.

Og jeg har det imod det at han var en lokal, meget lokal, excentrisk kunstner.
Og at det , hvis man har fjernet al det excentriske, det vil sige husets bugnende indhold af skitser, skrald og skeletter, gipsafstøbninger og fotokopier og kun har det fugtslåede ruin af et  lortehus tilbage med nogle tilfældige bemalinger, er  meget svært at fortælle fortællingen om ham.
Tossen havde penge med hjemmefra og kunne derfor leve som han ville.
Det er INGEN bedrift.


Men hvem skal være gæster og hvad skal de se og opleve??? Dag efter dag, år efter år??
At en samling aldrende og forvirrede høns er stimlet sammen om mindet om en mand de slet ikke kendte, er, som jeg fik sagt i farten i vores udsendelse igår, en mærkelig form for kærlighed.
Og da slet ikke den form endsige den alder, denne herligt liderlige mand så flittigt dyrkede.
At eks-skolens helte, på den yderste kriterieløse og reaktionære højrefløj, nu uimodsagte har misbrugt ham som deres guru, er vist ikke helt i overensstemmelse med de faktiske forhold i jernindustrien.


Om huset: Riv det ned.


Om Richard Winther:
Lad os huske et herligt liv og en stor begavet personlighed... men lad være med at lave endnu et vingeskudt skimmelstinkende museumsmindestuehus bare for at have noget at lave.
Hans værker finder stille og roligt deres plads i den danske kunsthistorie.
Måske.
Stor eller lille.
Kun tiden kan vise det.

Men I  kan jo også modbevise mig, og rejse plejehjemmet til en lysende verdenskunstposition, en stor international kunstner i fantastiske omgivelser !!!...
pøj, pøj med projektet.
Det kræver, set med min optik, mere substans.

Hvad bliver det næste hvis jeg skulle falde om imorgen: Et Arnoldimindestuemuseum i Amaliegade 40 ???

Jeg brækker mig.

Når kunstnerne dør.... så glem dem, og lad værket lige så  stille tilbageerobre sin plads i kunsthistorien... om muligt.



My Dear Friend,

You ask about our TV-broadcast last night, what I have against Richard Winther's house, now opened as a museum in Vindeby, Lolland???

It smells!
That I do not like!
The smell is not a good omen for the future.

And I am against the fact that he was a local, very local, eccentric artist.
And if you have removed all that was eccentric, that is the bulging contents of sketches, garbage and skeletons, plaster casts and photocopies from the house with only the moist-ridden magnificent ruin of a shitty house with some random decorations left behind, it is a very difficult way to tell his story.
The half-wit had an inheritance and could live as he pleased.
That is NO accomplishment.

But who will be guests and what shall they see and experience??? Day after day, year after year?
That a collection of aging and confused chickens are huddled together in the memory of a man they did not know is as I said during our broadcast yesterday, a strange kind of love.
And certainly not the kind, let alone the age, this gloriously horny man so diligently cultivated.
That the eks-skole-heroes, on the extreme criteria free and reactionary right wing, now unchallenged has abused him as their guru, is not quite in accordance with the actual conditions in the steel industry.

About the house: Tear it down.
About Richard Winther:
Let us remember a wonderful life and a great and gifted personality... but do not create another half-arsed, mold-ridden, stinky memorial in order just to have something to do.
His works will quietly find their place in Danish art history.
Maybe.
Big or small.
Only time will tell.

But you can of course disprove me and lift the nursing home to a luminous position in the art world, a major international artist in an amazing setting! ...
Good luck with the project.
This requires when seen from my point of view, more substance.

What is next, what if I were to pass on tomorrow: An Arnoldi Memorial Museum at Amaliegade 40???

I'm sick.

When artists die… forget them and let the work quietly regain its place in art history... if possible.