Otto Muehl * (Grodnau 1925-2013 Moncarapacho, Portugal) "der kranke bacchus" caravaggio, signed and dated otto muehl 6.8.86 on the reverse as well as titled "der kranke bacchus" caravaggio, acrylic on canvas, 220 x 160 cm, on stretcher Model: “Der kranke Bacchus”, 1593, by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio Provenance: Private Collection, Vienna You can only learn something by building on what already exists. The whole development of humans, from single-celled organisms through to complex cognition, participated in a single learning process. In art one also has to learn to reach back to the past. Whether it is in literature or elsewhere. I also draw on the Egyptians, the Renaissance, the physical. I have a stronger reference to the body than the Egyptians; they are much more abstract. Then there is the representation of space, folding space into the surface. Picasso. I married this approach with van Gogh, with colour theory. So you have to build on the old in order to arrive at the new. ... Conversation on 22 November 1996 from Otto Mühl. Aus dem Gefängnis, Ritter Verlag, 1997