Prof. Dr. Harald Szeemann

"The positive energy of the inventor-artist and Leonardo da Vinci of contemporary art, Dieter Liedtke, can be experienced by any visitor of the exhibition by means of his work. His work, theory and concepts are revolutionary, contagious and point out new ways to a humane society to art as well as science."

Via the event, Dieter Liedtke wants to change art, intuition, man, and the people. Various meetings have taken place meanwhile and I have learned more about this fun-loving idealist, who has followed his own way to make his own the legacy of Beuys, his appeal for a creative human and creative society. Liedtke is an artist himself; he has made exhibitions, but had a first-hand experience in the lack of interest in his works. Then he made the decision to become an inventor. The patents for the hair trimmer, the air-cushioned shoe sole and the audiovisual retail marketing concept have made him a rich man. During the 80’s he was visiting Beuys who at that time was more and more getting socio-politically committed and doubted a valid art formula, a mankind-changing art. Liedtke started there. Vie the image, the images, he seeks to make creativity directly visible, making it comprehensible via the image or the pictures. His Art Formula, Life + Expansion of Consciousness = Art is in a sense the condensate of his research efforts explained in his various publications: The Consciousness of Matter (1982), The Fourth Dimension (1987), The Key to Art (1990)... The belief in the recognition that all newly developing stages of evolution, information and awareness levels have always been available in the fourth dimension and only appear in the third dimension in a state burdened with the factors of past, present, future and spatially restricted areas, has led the inventor-artist to experience the power of art and boundless images as a revolution towards the Holistic. He compares this current revolution with the time when reading and writing were unavailable to the majority, since knowledge was limited in its transferability and was only reserved for the chosen few.

Today, access to creativity is only possible via images, because it is image sequences that the human mind works with. The archetype of every vision of the future is the vision, the dream, the connection of non-existing realities. The path from the future to the present is only possible by using the visual language of art. It makes people visionary, enabling them to experience the processes so far unnoticed and understand them. To trigger this potential in people who have no special equipment for it, the Art Formula is kept simple in terms of optical visibility: it is based on the evolution of innovations. For Liedtke the human being is as similarly structured as the Earth; he features consciousness and subconsciousness, genes and genetic information. His spirit consists of much water, however, meaning a large share of subconsciousness. His thoughts are like ships. Since within the structures of the human personality an important role is played by subconsciousness, it is only via these that the inclusion of new content can lead to change. This is the only way for the human to reach a new level of consciousness. Everything must be placed into the water; in this way the ships that carry thoughts can unlearn to comply with the stupid timetables to generate new ideas and visions, interconnected within the original substance in the water. Only following this dilution of the highest grade makes healing and homeopathic aid possible. Liedtke is an ideology-free idealist; he has realized that this awakening of the gift of the visionaries has to occur gradually. He has therefore been working with a team of art historians for years on a CD-ROM to illustrate the creativity. An example: Albrecht Dürer’s famous frontal-view self-portrait (1500) featuring a blessing gesture of Salvator Mundi is confronted with the usual three-quarter view in a portrait and snapshot.

In all far-fetched examples: Jan van Eyck (depth and luminosity by multiplying the layers of paint); Robert Campini (finest reproduction of materiality); Luca Signorelli (background animation with nudes); for the view and the snapshot in his Portrait of a Man (1512), Titian (reproduction by animation of the facial expression) is referred to the cited innovation.

In his own work of art Liedtke has integrated this pursuit of an expanded Awareness in his image and object. The Way from the Second to the Fourth Dimension, the White Genes. Settled at Andratx, Mallorca he has implemented his vision of architecture on a steep slope –a cross-linked hierarchical structure sliding down to the sea. This is where his museum is also housed.