Helmut Schimpfke

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I was born in Germany in 1942 at the worst of all times. Hamburg was bombed by the Americans during the day and by the British at night. Women and children had to be evacuated from the major cities. My mother, older sister and I were sent to Aussig, Sudentenland (today part of the Czech Republic). With the advancing Russian invasion in the East, 14 million people whose families had lived their for generations were forced out as refugees from what is now part of Poland, Russia, Slovakia, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------For merly victimized population in the East were avenging atrocities committed by the fascist. Rape, pillage and massacres were rampant against Nazis and innocent civilians alike. We were caught up in a churning vortex of rumors, panic, pandemonium and death marches-tragic circumstances repeating themselves today in other parts of the World. Modern warfare, thanks to technology, is the murdering of civilians as much as it is the opposing combatants. In fact, more innocent civilians die in these kinds of wars than soldiers. In Hiroshima, systematic killed, 100, 000 civilians in a single day .......................Dresden (WWII) 40, 000 civilians in a single day (I was there)------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ After walking hundreds of miles under unspeakable conditions with little food and often no shelter, we finally ended up back in Hamburg. I grew up in the center of town, in the vicinity of the Opera House and a few houses away from Brahms' birthplace. After completing my basic education in the German public school system, I apprenticed as a stone cutter/sculptor in Hamburg. At first, I renovated Gothic churches and monuments severely damaged in the war, and later went to Berlin, where I renovated, among others, the Reichstag building-and other famous landmarks. Psst! Most artists who made sculptures in stone are not capable of executing their own works. Therefore, there are some sculptures in public places which I executed but which do not carry my name.------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------- In the early '60s, I became a free-lance artist, to becoming part of the avant-garde in modern art (kinetic-light-animation-conceptual). My galleries: Springer, Gallery S (Ben Wargin) and Jule Hammer (Willy Brandt's, public relation men) among others. Because of the World Wars, the center of Western progressive art had shifted away from Vienna, Berlin and Paris to America, and specifically to New York. I decided, that was the place I had to go to make a bigger splash. -------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ----In 1980 the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) presented a gigantic show, inappropriately titled Picasso: Father of Modernism, since Picasso was in reality the king of classic anachronism (called neo-classicism). A million tickets were sold in advance, when I decided to take kinetic art's last stand. First I burned a (lousy) hand-signed Picasso litograph in front of MOMA (stating that not all works by Picasso are bad). Then I printed a half million flyers (my artist name PAUL) incorporating an open letter to the art world condemning post-modernism. I even put a kinetic manifesto on it and proclaimed human beings as works of art, encouraging them to value their own individuality. Working diligently for about 100 days, I managed to distribute some 350,000 flyers in person to the people waiting in line at MOMA. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------The results were mind-boggling. ABC News (Joel Siegel), National Public Radio, 1010-Wins, Associated Press and other media featured my revelation, and the cause for true progress got recognition everywhere. Some media virtually declared my project the most interesting item of the entire show. In the 21st. Century the museum finally renewed itself. ------------------------------------------------------------ - ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ----------So when the stuffy art establishment (which I exposed and poked fun at-for the cause) finally changed, I decided to write a book entitled, What's the Purpose of Art? But the more I researched the subject, the more my horizons broadened. Gradually I became disenchanted with being limited only to art and subsequently changed the title to: What's the Purpose? Not just of art but everything: natural phenomena, personal development, religion, government, nationalism, economic systems, education, art (including music), and so on. My magnum opus now concerns a vision for a mega-dimensional universe and its effect on human civilization.