TransAct statement

While writing about Arnulf Rainer I came across a Dr. W., a teacher in Villach who irritated Rainer with his "Drau valley view" of art. Has nothing changed since then? Has Dr. W. been reincarnated as the advisor to the Carinthian provincial governor in cultural questions?

From a distance it looks like this. If Austria once again puts on cultural blinkers and becomes anti-intellectual, the country will become the alien element in Europe that those who boycott the country already want to see today. Before that begins international contacts must not only be continued but also intensified. Austrian artists and intellectuals do not need these contacts for purposes of self-presentation but as the air they breathe.

Prof. Dr. Werner Hofmann, Hamburg
Art historian, Founding Director of the Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna (1959–1969), Director of the Hamburg Kunsthalle (1969–1990)

21st of February 2K