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My principal areas of interest are writing systems. For example primarily sign languages of the Shang dynasty in China (approx. from 1700-1100 B.C.), the surprisingly comic-like picture writing of the Na-xi (approx. 2000 years old, China), the hieroglyphics of the Hittites (approx. 1300 B.C., Anatolia) and clandestine signs of beggar and tramps as well as underground comics.
Within the context of my art studies I was especially drawn towards artists and arts movements, who/which had worked in the overlapping fields of painting, drawing, literature and music. One focus was on the Paris based group "Les Lettristes". This multidisciplinary group is little known, although they might be regarded as legitimate heirs to pre-war Dadaist and started their fluxus-like activities as early as 1946.
As an enthusiast of "difficult books", I got absorbed into "Finnegans Wake", the last book by James Joyce. I transformed my copy into a multidimensional book-object with color effects, smells and drawings on the margins.
As for the work of Samuel Beckett, I was fascinated by the intensity his perception of the world around us and by his mastership in transforming these observations into multisensual artistic entities. I shot a film based on Beckett’s novel "Molloy".
As an artist I started off with book objects, paintings on paper and various surfaces and supports. These interests developed into the area of graffiti, and my activities here were always 'site specific' to the respective spaces, walls or found materials.
I worked on disused tiles from Burgundy with paint, made by myself of earth and stones from that region.
In my project "Reed:: Rite" - on the Brandenburger Kunsttage, I painted on concrete silo-walls.
Authors I love: Cervantes, Ludwig Tieck, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, J.M.Synge, Joyce, Beckett, Flan O' Brian, Thomas Bernhard, Paul Watzlawick, Wittgenstein …
Über Werner Linster
Werner Linster macht situative Zeichnungen, die häufig in Holzobjekte übertragen werden. Er stellt sie neben Jahrtausende alte bildhafte Schriftzeichen der Na-xi (Yünnan, Südwest-China) und neben Gaunerzinken aus Österreich (19. Jahrhundert). Beide Schriftsysteme haben die Zeichnungen Linsters beeinflusst, da sie der Bilderzählung und dem Bilderrätsel verwandt sind. Zur Erzählung verdichtet und verschlüsselt wurden sie, weil sie geheim waren – die eine Priesterschrift - die andere clandestines Verständigungswerkzeug der das Land durchstreifenden „Kunden“.
So stellen viele dieser Zeichen nicht unmittelbar eine Sache dar, sondern nehmen Umwege über verwandte Dinge, mit denen sie eventuell nur den Wortklang gemein haben. Oder es werden entscheidende Situationen zum Zweck der geheimen Mitteilung wie ein Comic zur beredten Zeichnung kondensiert. |
