Befiederter Mann Print

Born 1947 in Heilbronn (Baden-Württemberg), father was the artist and educator Rudolph Mutschler, sister is the artist and architect Eva Petzold. Art and art history have always played the most important role in my life. Numerous stays in Greece and Italy during my childhood and youth. Later also a three-month trip through Italy, very inspiring for the rest of my life - disposable income ten Deutschmarks. As a (young) father of two and later four children, I found it sometimes exhausting but also enriching to come to terms with little. Studies at the Kunstakademie Stuttgart. We were struggling over the concept of art. Beuys helped me out of the conservative concept of art. One of his students, Holger Utta, taught me. I read a lot, Erich Fromm, C.G. Jung, Mitscherlich, first encounters with anthroposophy. I was with Prof. Schellenberger in the master class for puppetry, we developed experimental theatre, our attempt to see man as part of art. Our performance "Ich - Sklave - Über-ich - Sklave, Roboter - Sklave" moved a reporter of the Süddeutscher Rundfunk II (21.2.1971, 22.30) to this statement: "The following actions", says the reporter, sceptical about the title, "a mixture of pantomime, puppet play and effective visuals, fascinated so directly that at times one seemed to gaze spellbound at the stage of one's own consciousness". His analysis: "The simple fact, still fresh today and more ingeniously disguised than ever, that we are all puppets at times and have to free ourselves from the tormenting state," aptly sums up the driving force behind my artistic work. Incidentally, the discussion has lost nothing of its relevance for me. A longhaired art teacher wearing a corduroy suit, I came to grammar school , where the old spirit still reigned. The headmaster was speechless in the face of this performance. I took Joseph Beuys with me to this school - everyone is an artist. That's not directly aimed at brush and easel, no: every person is able to lead a situation to a better one by himself - if they have access to creativity and empathy in the here and now. From my point of view, this positive presence allows us to do justice to people, to act humanly. So, art and pedagogy merge. Hard to chew for some of those present in the teaching staff. I also understood my teaching activity as compensation for my own, often humiliated student soul. Now I live in Machern near Leipzig.