(Grodnau 1925–2013 Moncarapacho, Portugal)
‘interieur’ no. 2, titled, signed and dated on the reverse muehl 8.12.86, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 130 cm, framed, (K)

Compare:
Otto Muehl, Ausgewählte Arbeiten, 1963–1986, otto muehl, Friedrichshof/Hubert Klocker-Kunsthandel, Vienna

Provenance:
From an Austrian Collection

the journey to egypt 1957

I met patsy at the academy, her father was a greek businessman in alexandria. I fell in love with her, and one day she said to me: otto, you must go to egypt, egyptian art will show your art the way.
she said this until I believed it and we travelled together to alexandria to her father. after all klee and macke had been to tunis where they had their key experiences, there they saw the light. ‘the colour has me’, klee had claimed enthusiastically. I too expected my artistic enlightenment on the journey to egypt.
we travelled via paris where patsy visited alexandre the famous hairdresser. his salon had around 100 chairs, mass produced. the maestro rushed from chair to chair, seizing into hair and directing the design of his assistants.
afterwards I bought patsy a new citroen 2CV and we drove, it was january, southwards on icy roads to genoa. on the way we stopped in aix-en-provence and visited cezanne’s studio. an old woman opened the door and let us in, we shivered in reverence as we stood in the studio, the great unmatched master!
an egyptian, said patsy, and laughed. I was hot for patsy.
what do you mean by that?
the geometry, said patsy. but the egyptians are better. cezanne a horrible little dwarf, a psychopath.
hey, hey, I said almost indignant.
otto, you’ll see, the egyptian art, she said making an ecstatic movement up and outwards with her hands, audibly breathing in, will simply knock you down, you and your cezanne.
but, but, I said.
she looked at me mysteriously. her black pupils clearly set against the white cornea, the edge of the lids showed me the way to egypt. I looked, confused, around the studio and my eyes stopped at a scruffy old coat of cezanne’s on a hook.
piteous, isn’t it? said patsy.
I was embarrassed…

then we finally continued our journey to egypt. we landed in alexandria with patsy’s parents. we took the train to cairo and there, as we left the railway station, stood a statue of ramses on a plinth, sculpted from black basalt. it left an overwhelming impression, a figure of perfect beauty, of form, proportions and lines. I was completely stunned, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of base humanity, calling for baksheesh, going to wrack and ruin and creeping around in pyjamas as their daily garb. they simply slept beneath ramses, and the flies crawling around on their faces, they’d given up trying to wipe them away. I had the impression that this ramses looked down, despising this degenerate people. the pharoah in his hauteur was catching. I identified with ramses. he was my god, powerful, calm, sparing, no expressive movement…
Otto Muehl 1986 From the mentioned literature