“Manic inventing”? Karl Hans Janke’s life was a struggle against the consequences of this medical diagnosis. More than 2500 drawings document his inventions of atomic propulsion models, domestic lamps that collect steric energy, and spaceships that fly without the need for energy at all. Janke did not want to be an artist, and he plagued every institution he could find, from the Academy of Sciences to the Ministry of Trade and Supplies, with requests to promote and to realise his world-changing innovations. His sketches were so authoritative in their precision that people hesitated to reject his work. And so Janke collected statements from the scientific world besides his own “engineer’s” papers. What could not adequately console Janke is now the object of a large-scale retrospective at Künstlerhaus Bethanien: the artistic quality of an oeuvre that was not intended as fiction and yet, without doubt, represents a fascinating narrative.

Curator: Peter Lang.