Tuesday, 18 June 2024, 4:05 pm
in OE1 Tonspuren
+ available on:
https://sound.orf.at/collection/53/63148/alfred-kubin-der-magier-von-zwickledt

Alfred Kubin – the Magician of Zwickledt
An audio piece by Susanne Ayoub

With: Roman Blumenschein, Martina Ebm, Pippa Galli and Karl Markovics
Sound Engineering: Robert Pavlecka
Directed by Susanne Ayoub
Edited by Claudia Gschweitl

The setting is a medieval estate on the Bavarian border. This is where the artist Alfred Kubin spent more than half a century until his death in 1959, and where a large part of his oeuvre came into being, including his only novel, which he illustrated himself.

Many famous contemporaries like Stefan Zweig and Hermann Hesse admired “Die andere Seite” (The Other Side) and interpreted it as a visionary text. Kubin and Kafka knew each other in Prague, and their works bear kindred traits. Kubin was convinced of his contacts with the Beyond, and when people are asked about their memories, everyone has an anecdote to contribute, from a hailstorm out of a clear blue sky to conjuring spirits during a thunderstorm. Kubin wanted to be reborn as a snake, so that he could sneak inconspicuously around the house and garden. There are stories about that as well.

ALFRED KUBIN’S NEIGHBOR: MITZI SCHNEIDER

Maria Süss, “Mitzi Schneider,” who celebrated her 95^th birthday on June 9^th, knew Alfred Kubin personally. For many years her uncle sewed for the artist, who was considered an eccentric because he tipped his hat to children while out walking and gave them sweets and small pictures. Back home, the pictures got burned in the stove, those “scribbles,” as the people in the village called them. “Folks didn’t understand ‘em,” Mitzi tells me. After Kubin’s death, when they found out what his pictures were worth, they were sorry they’d done it.

ALFRED KUBIN’S HOUSEKEEPER CILLI

Cilli Lindinger was associated with Kubin for many years. After the death of his wife Hedwig, he proposed marriage to her, but she declined. She took care of him at home until his death, and for a long time after that she guided visitors through the Kubin Museum. Numerous stories about Kubin have been passed on by Cilli. Many of them concern his dealings with spirits, demons, and even the Devil. During thunderstorms, he walked out in his garden and took up contact with the Beyond. Cilli warned him and was afraid for him. In vain. But she did have one weapon against his obsession: she prayed, often a hundred Lord’s Prayers a day.

Translation Geoffrey C. Howes

LOTTE AND HER MAÎTRE
An audioplay
by Susanne Ayoub

Tuesday, November 1
10:05 a.m. on Ö1

https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20221101/695539/Das-legendaere-Kuenstlerpaar-Lotte-Profohs-und-Leherb

with Gerti Drassl + Silvia Meisterle + Michael Dangl + Jörg Stelling
Sound engineering by Elmar Peinelt and Jakob Kainz
Edited by Elisabeth Stratka
A production of the ORF Feature Department, 2022

About the play
The Viennese artist couple Lotte Profohs and Leherb, idolized and admired in the 1960s and 70s, established their success with performances that were scandlous at the time. Lotte’s international career began early when she invented Leherb and herself as fictional characters, remaining on the sidelines as an artist while being omnipresent as a muse and a model. It was a young love that lasted a lifetime, even if it was not a happy relationship. Lotte attempted suicide several times. In middle age she withdrew from public view. Leherb, on the other hand, continued to appear in baroque costumes trimmed with live mice and a stuffed pigeon, until he died in 1997 at age 64. Their drug-addicted son Anselm followed him four years later. Lotte Profohs outlived both of them, surrounded by her dove Arabella and the mice Paul and Pierre, until 2012.

A Congenial Collaboration
Two jointly produced audio recordings present a special aspect of the couple’s congenial collaboration. Autodafé, a sort of surreal audio play with Boy Gobert as narrator, and Irre Gut (Insanely Good), with lyrics written and sung by both artists and musical arrangements by Toni Stricker, remain a revealing and refreshing listening experience to this day.