Munich: Villa Stuck celebrates Gustav Mesmer, the "Ikarus vom Lautertal" - inspiring!

Created: 05/11/2022, 17:24

By: Katja Kraft

Gustav Mesmer (1903-1994) manufactured dozens of aircraft.

He's never taken off with it.

And yet flown.

© Stefan Hartmaier

Gustav Mesmer (1903-1994) was known as the "Icarus of Lautertal".

All his life he dreamed of flying - and tried again and again and again.

The Munich Villa Stuck is now celebrating him with a fantastic show that inspires.

When the facts are hard and ugly, take off.

Fly away.

Now not with the one-way ticket to Australia, no.

With your own muscle power into the land of fantasy.

"The airspace is still free for you.

Quickly invent some wings.

Let them raise you free.

You should soar through the air as if that were your luck!” These inspiring sentences mark the beginning of the special exhibition about Gustav Mesmer, which can be seen in Munich’s Villa Stuck until July 10, 2022.

Mesmer (1903-1994) wrote them himself.

He whom they all just called “Ikarus vom Lautertal”.

A weird bird?

Lucky, yes!

But one whose wings the conventionalists wanted to clip.

Gustav Mesmer was locked away as schizophrenic

Maybe he should have left the impromptu sermon in the village church.

In 1929, when he was 26, young Gustav walked past the church in his hometown of Altshausen in Upper Swabia on a beautiful Sunday morning.

And all of a sudden he stormed into the church, preached a sermon in front of the assembled congregation, which, however, did not particularly convince the assembled congregation.

“Blasphemy!” it said.

"A religious accident," Mesmer himself later called it.

The summoned doctor, however, attested to "schizophrenia in an inherently feeble-minded person".

It was the beginning of a terrible mistake.

Which meant more than 30 years in psychiatric institutions for the "madman", who was simply insanely inventive.

A lifelong dream of flying

The fact that he escaped euthanasia by the National Socialists is thanks to his talent for craftsmanship and his tireless will to work.

Mesmer learns bookbinders, carpenters, basket makers.

And in 1964 he left the psychiatric ward and went to a home in Buttenhausen in the Lauter Valley on the Swabian Jura.

This is where the beautiful part of the story begins.

The man is 60 years old – and takes off.

Mesmer dreamed of flying all his life.

Here is one of his many sketches for flying machines.

© Gustav Mesmer

For all those decades in psychiatry, Gustav Mesmer dreamed of flying.

Hundreds of drawings and colored sketches, dozens of which are hanging in the show at Villa Stuck, bear witness to this.

Hardly in Buttenhausen than he begins to carpenter the designs.

Made of wood, paper, cardboard, wire, sheet metal, cords.

All old materials that he can find and reuse.

He's considered crazy, but of course he knows that there are now airplanes and zeppelins.

But when he sits in a helicopter, he doesn't like it at all.

Too little sensual.

Too little free.

Mesmer is researching flying machines with which everyone can soar from village to village like a bird.

A film showing Mesmer's attempts to fly can be seen in the cinema in the Villa Stuck.

© kjk

The curatorial duo Anne Marr and Stefan Hartmaier have set up a cinema on the mezzanine floor.

There is a short documentary that makes your heart melt.

This mischievous old man, well over 70 in the film, pedals one of his many flying machines, rolls down a sloping country road with, well, as much monkey speed as an aged monkey can muster, and drives down into the valley.

Without picking up.

Despite wings, it was nothing to fly again.

Indeed?

You sit there smiling and happy.

Because you have seen all the other wild bird inventions of this artist before - and felt: He has soared higher than all the vultures who have ever attacked him.

Once Gustav Mesmer was asked by a journalist whether he had actually flown himself.

Then he replied with Valentine's cheer: "Yes, down the stairs."

Until July 10, 2022, Tuesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.;

the “I hear a new world” series of events is running parallel to this, in which Gustav Mesmer's instrument inventions are also showcased.

All information is available here