To the Aarhus people

For the very first time in my career I feel the urgent need to express myself in words to the public at large.

Last Month (Aug. 2011) I was invited by Mr. Sondergaard to join one of the largest cultural Events of Scandinavia, the Aarhus Festuge. Not only the Slogan 'Beautiful Mistakes' was reasonable to accept the invitation spontaneously. I've never been to Denmark and had the urge to create a new painting at your Festival. All communication between Mr. Sondergaard and my agent has proceeded smoothly at a high professional Level. I was confident this was going to be a good project and could not wait for start painting there.

The nordic weather is as it is, always changing and unpredictable. Understandable, the local weather forecast wasn't accurate enough and we lost at least two days that were scheduled and needed for painting. On the one hand this is very frustrating - I really want to focus on my project and continue painting without any disturbances, but the rain kept eating away our energy and time. On the other hand I do love the rapid change of weather. This challenge wasn't an everyday routine but nevertheless it seemed feasible for us to work with the elements and complete the project on time and as planned.

The audience was great. We met and appreciated many of you and even made new friends. This made it easier for us to go with the flow of things, trust each weather forecast and go for day and night shifts to guaranty that the painting will be finished. What else could we do?

On a past project my assistant, Tomaz Frenk Frajnkovic and me where fighting a hard time in Moscow while the forest fires where going on at August 2010. My beloved painting 'Duality' emerged under violent environmental conditions. We had experienced the worst we thought...

However, we had no idea that at the Aarhus Festival at night time the 'audience' also would change rapidly. The first outrage turned out to be very consistent with the forecast. From pissing at our tent to copulate in public - the list of detesting examples of lost human dignity is endless. On my request Mister Sondergaard allocated a Security Guard on short notice. Thank you Tom to make us feel saver. Working two nights through we have seen no police around to provide protection. Despite the ongoing aggression and provocation against us, we where able to contiune working on our painting somehow. With increasing night the situation became worse and we had just one thought: GET OFF! LET US DO OUR WORK. DON'T STEEL OUR TIME. YOU DISGUST US! WE SPIT ON YOU AS YOU SPIT ON OUR PAINTING!

After 55 hours working nonstop I feel I have no other option left than to express my feelings and share them with you. Our plan was to extend our stay in Aarhus and enjoy this beautiful city. Unfortunately we were forced to give up. But we didn't and had to waste this valuable time to a massive presence of destruction and hate.

I'm disappointed with my painting. The result is not what I had in mind or what it should and could have been. But given the circumstances this was the best we could do. I extend my apologies to those who treated us with respect and understood that Frenk and me have limited resources to work with.


Edgar Mueller