WERNER BRENNERNU HAR VIETTIP04-16.01.1974

galerie s:t petri
s:t petri kyrkogata 5
lund
046 / 14 78 00

Werner Brenner, Austrian artist, is exhibiting at Galerie S:t Petri during the period January 4–16, 1974. During this time, the people of Lund and other art-interested visitors will have the opportunity to become acquainted with the International Non-Violence Party (IP), founded by him together with Barbro Carlman, an international political party established on May 1, 1972.

IP seeks to stimulate an awareness that perceives the innermost connections and, in accordance with them, takes responsibility for the consequences of one’s way of life. In its program IP states, among other things:

“We believe that Western slaughterhouse cultures are based on a development-fixated idea founded on a myth — the myth that everything exists to serve humanity’s egocentric purposes, that her environment can be isolated until it becomes a sterile, ‘human-friendly’ Eden in a glass dome. This comfortable dream can never come true, since human beings live in an inseparable symbiosis with all living things on earth. … We, who founded IP, live in and with art that strives toward non-violence. … We want no compulsion in our views or ways of life; we want to stimulate independent, prejudice-free thinking that in its own rhythm facilitates the emergence of the awareness that gives us both joy and the ability to take responsibility for ourselves…”

Several prominent people have over the years praised Brenner — among them August Strindberg, who in a letter to a colleague wrote: “This is the new era’s man! Brenner has found la nouvelle formule! You know that I used to end all my letters to literary friends with ‘Read Nietzsche!’ ” Brenner, like Nietzsche, rejected the dualism between good and evil. He is “beyond Good and Evil,” but he has drawn different and more radical conclusions. The core of art is love, non-violence. Reverence for the ethics of life’s recognition has its relative ethics. Good is only that which preserves and promotes life, and everything that harms or destroys life is evil. The ethics of devotion must unite with the ethics of self-perfection (cf. Nietzsche); they must become universal and allow devotion to apply not only to humankind but to all that exists, all created beings, all life. Therefore: read William Blake, read Van Gogh’s letters, read Brenner! There you have the man of the new era!”

Werner Brenner is also showing a series of photographs called “Happening Werner Brenner.”

The exhibition is open weekdays 3 p.m. – 8 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.