Where Saracens

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Wo Sarazen (born August 8, 1923 in Hof (Saale) ; died March 27, 2020 in Bayreuth ) was an artist living in Bayreuth. His real name was Werner Maria Baumann.

Life

Baumann spent the first four years of his life in Edlendorf near Helmbrechts . There he survived an accident unharmed in which two wild horses and a cart overran him. Soon afterwards he moved to Bayreuth with his parents. His mother died early.

During the Second World War , he came to El-Alamein in Egypt as a soldier in 1944 and continued up to 90 kilometers from Cairo. His later stage name he derived from the Saracens who once lived there . On May 14, 1944, he was shot in the leg in Italy.

After the war he worked as a peddler , gardener and manager in a variety theater . In 1949 he received a poetry award. At the request of his father, he took an aptitude test as a police officer in Ansbach and was rejected as unsuitable. He became a bookseller , founded a publishing house and in 1951 brought out his first Bayreuth illustrated book. In 1964 he opened an antique shop and in 1976 with his second wife under her maiden name the art auction house Waltraud Boltz.

Wo Saracens said of themselves: “There are no extraterrestrials. I'm an alien. ”He passed away at the age of 96 during the COVID-19 pandemic and was quietly buried.

plant

In the Bayreuth district of Sankt Georgen there are extensive tunnel-like cellar vaults that were dug into the castle sandstone by the brewers who used to live there in the 18th and 19th centuries to store the bottom-fermented beer. Wo Sarazen had set up his "Cellar Art Museum" in part of this tunnel system, in which he exhibited his own works. The Cellar Art Museum is therefore less a museum in the traditional sense than a kind of gallery.

This "Grotto of the Magician", which the artist described as "a spirit realm", was opened on August 8, 1991. It can be entered from his "House of Art and Encounter" on Brandenburger Strasse. The extensive underground corridors are spread over several floors. During a visit it was possible that the artist himself became part of a performance. The exhibited objects sometimes have bizarre names such as Virgo with three letters in the head or Einstein's brain .

On the occasion of the preparatory work for a pop concert by Michael Jackson in the city 's stadium, Wo Sarazen said "Escape routes always lead to a dead end" and created an object on the occasion with the title Escape routes . Numerous paths marked with sharp broken glass lead into a wire mousetrap.

Wo Sarazen commented on his cellar art museum as follows: “In contrast to other museums, our inventory is neither cherished nor maintained. The natural decay - favored by the dampness of the vaults - is in no way stopped. ”Regarding his objects, he said:“ They are often esoteric puzzles. ... If you want to fathom it, you have to listen deeply. "

A toy museum is housed in the house and there is also a concert hall with a Bösendorfer concert grand. Song recitals and jazz and piano concerts with well-known artists are held there during the Bayreuth Festival . In the “Cabinet de fleurs”, poetry readings and discussion evenings take place in small groups.

The building is also used by his wife as an art auction house. On the occasion of the auction of soft toys "Cuddly animals under the hammer" Wo Sarazen brought a full-grown grizzly bear without a muzzle into the hall in May 1992 and suggested organizing a world congress of teddy bear collectors in Bayreuth.

For decades he provoked and astonished his fellow citizens with his exuberant imagination, his bizarre ideas and his disturbing actions. He confronted her with his rotting museum, presented himself as an alien or as a pharaoh in a coffin. Wo Sarazen said in an interview in 2009 about his place of residence: "For me, Bayreuth is the saddest and most impossible place in the world because Wagner has absorbed and withdrawn creative forces for all time."

Awards

  • 2006 Culture Prize of the City of Bayreuth - he did not accept the prize money of 2500 euros

literature

  • Christoph Rabenstein, Ronald Werner: St. Georgen - Pictures and History (s) , Druckhaus Bayreuth, 1994

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b obituary notice Werner Baumann | North Bavarian courier. Retrieved April 2, 2020 .
  2. ↑ "What does that actually mean?" In: Nordbayerischer Kurier from August 9, 2012, accessed on April 6, 2020
  3. ↑ a b c “Life is only a dream” in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from April 3, 2020, p. 7.
  4. ↑ 25 years ago: Where Sarazen opened the cellar museum in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from August 1, 2016, p. 10.
  5. ↑ Stephan-H. Fuchs: Bayreuth Chronicle 1991 . 1st edition. Gondrom, Bindlach 1991, ISBN 3-8112-0782-2 , p. 142 .
  6. ↑ Stephan-H. Fuchs: Bayreuth Chronicle 1992 . 1st edition. Gondrom, Bindlach 1992, ISBN 3-8112-0793-8 , p. 88 f .
  7. ↑ Christoph Rabenstein, Ronald Werner: St. Georgen - Pictures and History (s) , p. 154.
personal data
SURNAME Where Saracens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baumann, Werner Maria (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Hof (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 2020
Place of death Bayreuth