Hundertwasser about Hundertwasser

"What does man need to be happy

Progress is regression and regression becomes progress

My painting, I believe, entirely different because it is organic and vegetative

One reason why other people do not want to paint vegetatively and do not want to follow an organic mode of life is because it starts much too inconspicuosly, because there is no eclat, no quick hit, but it grows very slowly like grass, you almost do not notice it, and that does not correspond to our social order, which expects performance, output, result and immediate success

I would like to show how to live - and I do this quite instinctively - painting a Paradise that everybody can have, you only need to grab it

Paradise is here, only we ruin it

I want to show how simple it actually is to have Paradise on earth

And everything promised to us by religions and dogmas and the various political trends is all nonsense

So of course I came into conflict with society, which misunderstands all this

They believe that this is eccentricity, to make publicity only, but they forget that it is a part of myself,
that this is my natural form of expression

Why can an individual not live up to himself as a flower does

Colourfulness, variety and diversity are by all means better than the grey, the average grey

Only he who thinks and lives creatively will survive in the present world and the world beyond

One should live as in war when everything is rationed

Man must be careful

Man must think independently, must economise

Man must not squander blindly

Man must see to it that his circulation functions

The circulation from eating to shitting functions but the circulation from shitting to eating is interrupted

To be happy does not at all depend on being rich

Does not depend on production
It is difficult to say and easy at the same time

Paintings for me are doors which enable me, whenever I succeeded, to push them open into a world, very near and very far, where we have no access,
in which we are present, but which we can perceive
as contrary to the factual world
Our parallel world from which we are moving away
Yes, and that is Paradise, it is the place
where we are rooted, and which is whithheld from us
by some unexplainable force

And here I have succeeded in throwing open windows

It is difficult to explain how I succeeded. Certainly not by force, also not by reflection, and not by intelligence, and not necessarily by intuition, but rather like walking in a dream. The work of an artist is indeed very difficult because it cannot be undertaken by force, dilligence or intelligence

It is very strange, isn't it, when a man brings along everything the possesses,
assiduity, goodness, endurance, intelligence, everything man can get and yet he cannot approach

What is the reason

I believe, and I am absolutely sure,
that's why I think that painting is a religious activity,
that then the actual stimulus comes from outside,
from something we do not know, an undefinable power,
which comes or does not come and which guides your hand. In former days it was asserted to be the Muse, of course a stupid idea, but a kind of inspiration

So the only thing one can do is to prepare so that the supernatural impulses - or whatever you want to call them - can reach one

That means to be prepared
That means to exclude willpower, intelligence
and one's "wanting to do it better" same as ambition
I would like to be called a magician of vegetation
or something similar
- a magician filling a painting until it is full of magic -
with vegetative magic, with magic vegetation,
as if one is filling a glass with water

Everything is infinitely simple and so infinitely beautiful." ñ