Paeamble
Mr Dieter W. Liedtke has been known to me as an artist, philosopher and art theorist for more than ten years. We first met in person in 1999. Due to his great commitment and the importance of the matter, I supported Mr Liedtke's Essen art open exhibition with a precious painting by Rubens worth more than 8 million euros in my capacity as second director of the Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar and responsible chief conservator of paintings.
Due to my vital interest in the brilliantly new and modern approach in Liedtke's art, I have been intensively involved with his work and have also been able to view numerous works by Liedtke in the original in Germany and Spain in recent years. On the occasion of my last two trips to Spain, I also had the opportunity to study his oeuvre more closely, in December 1999 and again in July 2000.
In the late autumn of 2000, Mr Liedtke asked me for the first time to act as an expert witness for him. Due to time constraints, I was not able to do so until spring 2001. In May 2002, Mr Liedtke again asked me to act as an expert witness for him, as some of his works of art had once again been destroyed in a barbaric manner. At this point I would like to state, as I did in my first statement, that I am providing my expert opinion free of charge as a tribute to the innovative forces of the artist Dieter W. Liedtke.
I would also like to emphasise that I have written this expert opinion to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I am not pursuing any personal or material interests.
Expert opinion
The works in dispute are the following works by Dieter W. Liedtke, which were destroyed in Port d'Andratx, Mallorca, Spain, in February 2002.
A few preliminary remarks are indispensable for an assessment of the art and the value of the destroyed works of art by Dieter W. Liedtke.
The Liedtke Museum was designed and built by the artist in 1987-1993. He succeeded in organically uniting the topography of the site with the architecture of the building. The symbiosis of nature and building gave rise to an asymmetrical architecture. Removed rocks and visible rock formations were integrated into the building in harmony with nature.
From a bird's eye view, the building has the shape of a human brain. The sculptures Art Formula, Infinity Receiver Blue, Zero Point and Three Eyes Gene Programme, which had been wantonly destroyed and removed in the meantime, were located in the centre of this unique Gesamtkunstwerk - in their unique harmony they symbolised the processes in the brain.
The museum itself shows the most important works of the artist Dieter W. Liedtke on Concrete Evolutionism of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, as well as the original works of his Art Formula of 1988, the art-historical works of his Redescription of the Gene Programmes and the White Gene Areas of the 1980s and 1990s, and the cognitive images that led to his new Theory of Evolution of Cognitive Systems.
On the hostorical background of the art formula - Dieter W. Liedtkes:
The formula was developed from 1969-1988 to establish and promote a tool for creativity for all people.
Since René Descartes (1596-1650), the mind has been separated from the body in the Occident and thus creativity has been excluded as something indefinable.
This is what the historian of science Prof. Dr. Ernst Peter Fischer has to say:
I think the most important discovery at the end of the two Christian millennia is the insight that the old idea of polar opposites needs a new form. With this in mind, the most important task of occidental culture is to find its own symbol for the thinking that holds me in the world and the two of us together. Our culture must do this consciously, offering up the best it has, namely the complementary forms of the search for knowledge that we call art and science. Together they produce the humanity that could distinguish our culture. But we have yet to make this invention. It would be more important than anything that has happened in the past 2000 years - in the mind and in the world.
The result of the addition of the formula - the cross - as a symbol connects spirit and body, man and nature, the younger generation with the older generation, ethics and capital, entrepreneurship and social commitment, politics and the voter. In its symbolic power, the formula goes far beyond the occidental symbol sought by Ernst Peter Fischer to represent this complementarity. It links the natural sciences with art to form a new unity and opens both fields to the understanding of a broad public, - to a cross, a branching to new possibilities - to gene-programmed models of life, society and the future. It incorporates the orange of the Buddhist monks and the ying-yang symbol in the blending of the colours red and yellow, thus pointing to a deeper universe level in which art, creativity and the power of creation reveal the basis for matter, energy and the evolution of life. Through its graphics, it visually restores the unity of the Creator with his creatures and can thus become a symbol for a new society in prosperity, peace and freedom.
The destroyed or disputed works of art were located on the terraces (roof of house B) in the Art Forum as well as on the terrace between house A and B. The works of art in question were the following: the art of the artist, the art of the artist, the art of the artist, the art of the artist. The individual works of art were as follows:
1.
Art Formula Red Yellow
Five concrete pillars reinforced by monier bars, welded steel band construction of 30 cm width, glass fibre and polyester coated; acrylic paint in red and yellow; 1991/92; dimensions: 18 x 5 x 2,50 m.
Value: 400,000 EURO.
The first of two large sculptures is installed as a spiral concept, the spirate continuing in the landscape formation of the bay.
2.
Infinity Blue
Six concrete columns reinforced by monier bars, welded steel band construction of 30 cm width, glass fibre and polyester coated; acrylic lacquer in blue; 1991/92;
Dimensions: 22 x 5 x 2.50 m.
Value: 450.000 EURO.
3.
Three eyes gene programme
Stainless steel construction, electronics and three optical glasses in a mosaic field with reference to the programme structure of Liedtkes art formula; 1991/92;
Dimensions: 2 x 1 x 1 m.
Value: 100.000 EURO.
4.
Zero point
Plastic, coated with polyester, in blue, square polyester tub; 1987/88;
Dimensions: height: 2,20 m; tub: 1 x 1 m, filled with water.
Value: 130.000 EURO.
Dieter W. Liedtke's innovative artistic approach implies the representation of modern contents and revolutionary statements by means of completely new stylistic means and modes of expression. His radical spirit conveys the innovative statements of his works to less educated viewers of his art and allows the recipient to participate in a playful way.
The spectrum of the artist and philosopher Dieter Walter Liedtke's work can be experienced (for those to whom his revolutionary oeuvre was previously inaccessible) through the statements of renowned art historians, his books, models, theories and published research results.
Concerning the fixed values of the destroyed works of art:
The undersigned has an insurance policy from 1988. At that time, the renowned insurance broker agency C. Gielisch GmbH arranged a policy from Nord-Deutsche Versicherungs AG in Hamburg for a major exhibition by Dieter W. Liedtke at the Sheraton Hotel in Essen from 22 April to 22 May 1988.
At that time, up to DM 100,000 was set aside for major works and, in the event of damage, this was settled without difficulty. In contrast to this, the works of art now being examined are the nucleus of Dieter W. Liedtke's art work par excellence. As already explained, the works of art, in particular serial numbers 1 and 2, accentuated the centre of the entire museum and residential complex. Their removal devalued the entire complex, whose artistic statement remains difficult to comprehend.
The valuation was made against this background as well as the acceptance of Liedtke's art, especially with regard to private collectors in Germany and Spain.
Weimar, 19 September 2002
Dr. Thomas Föhl
Acting Director of the Weimar Art Collection