Art
In 1964 – at the age of 35 – VIKTOR found his ”Raison d’etre” and began a prolific flow of very personal work. At the outset he was a photographer for Life Magazine, but realizing through the assassination of Kennedy, the importance for a photographer of being on the right place at the right time, and settled in Amsterdam as a painter.
Scroll down and read more about VIKTOR’s art
IKONS
Using driftwood collected in the harbour as canvas VIKTOR named his paintings IKONS - the Greeek word for picture. There is no religious connotation, VIKTORS’s IKONS are images of everyday events, comments on life with humorous touches and twists, playful and serious at the same time.
Instead of devine scenes and figures of the relgious icons, VIKTOR’s subject matter is always the sun and the earth and the rich paper-thin layer of human life in between. The hatches were dried and superficially cleaned. The remaining tar and oil affected the paint VIKTOR used; White became ivory and the colors tended to look old on the worn pieces of wood.
Envelopes
“Dear Elizabeth - If you live with an important artist you also live with a terrible man…”
VIKTOR wrote many letters to Elizabeth/Ina before she moved to Amsterdam. Some of the envelopes were shown at a special exhibition at the Post Museum in 1998. Ina wrote the following on that occasion:
“Personally, I stumbled into VIKTOR’s halo at a troubled period in my life. So he became my string to life. His letters became my elixir of life. And I was lucky I was able to respond, so the contact became valuable for him too. These colorful collage envelopes always contained small crazy messages - besides straws and rusty safety pins, etc.
Through the many letters, I joined Viktor in spirit - and later in reality too. In “Storm and Still”, I took part in his joyful adventure. Many turbulent crazy wonderful years followed close by his side on the ship in Amsterdam. He confronted me with healthy demands: To my hands, mind and feeling. So he colored my whole life with his happy brushstrokes. And when he died, he left me a treasure trove of good memories that neither time nor rust nor water nor fire can destroy.” Ina Elisabeth Munck
RUNES
In the late 1970’s VIKTOR was inspired by the old Nordic alphabet. On heavy driftwood he painted countless humorous messages in simple clear colours. In his lively imagination he thought his writing was related to his own ancestors’ origins in remote areas in Eastern Europe.
The letters I=T and X=G and b=w he found especially decorative and painted separately. Using them as simple pictograms for ‘going forward’, ‘stop’ and ‘making a detour’. As such he used them in planning signs on his worktable. In periods he also painted what he called measuring sticks.
WORDS
VIKTOR spoke as he thought. Thought as he painted. Painted as he wrote.
He never took anything for granted and took what he received with just as great an appetite as he gave - without reservation:
IN GIVING DO IT TOTAL AND DON’T ASK ANYTHING BACK.
The texts VIKTOR wrote are complex in all their simplicity…
YOU CANNOT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN SOMEWHERE ELSE…
Logbook Pages
The logbook pages were VIKTOR’s way of recording his daily routines and impressions of the world around him.
Often simple stories with comments on his elementary existence. His handwriting is often intentionally difficult to read, with sentences almost crossed out and messages fading into the artwork. A refined mix of drawings, watercolor and stamps - in this way he invites the reader to reflect on his own life and asks us to finish his work ourselves.
All logbook pages have dates and often a number indicating the number of months since the date on which Viktor deemed himself to be an artist: April 4th 1964.
Selection of exhibitions
Louisiana Museum (1977 & 1983), Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (1982), Stedelijk Museum (1977 & 1983), Museum Fodor (1988), Rundetårn (1990), NY Gallery (1993), Postmuseum (1998), Gallery Novanta Nove (1996), Holland Experience (1998)…just to mention a few
