Art can save lives. Hans Langner does not have to think long about this sentence, which is as true as it sounds clichéd. Yes, he says, “art is what made me healthy again”. And yes, it was life-saving for him. The multimedia artist known as “Birdman” sits in the foyer of the Neurocoma rehabilitation clinic in the Tölzer Kurviertel, where he was treated for a year and a half after the brain hemorrhage he suffered in Malta in January 2019. He laughs often, he waves to acquaintances and friends, he is in good spirits, he is awake and in his right mind. He has just unveiled the large-format picture that he painted during his long period of rehab and that he has now given to Neurokom: On a golden background, colorful birds fly out of the depths in spirals towards the viewer. A motif full of joy and vitality. “I’m doing as well as ever,” says Langner.
That wasn’t necessarily to be expected when an aneurysm ruptured in his head and changed his life abruptly three and a half years ago. At that time, the winner of the SZ Tassilo Prize was still living in Vienna, artistically everything was going well for him, his works could be seen in New York and Chicago. But after the tragedy in Malta, everything changed from one second to the next. “You don’t know that, suddenly you’re thrown into something, you have to be like this and live like this,” says the 57-year-old. He couldn’t remember many things. “These are losses that you just accept.” What he found particularly frustrating was that he could no longer move his right hand, “I had to paint everything with my left hand, it wasn’t fun”. This has meanwhile improved considerably, the right hand can be used to some extent again. “I practiced a lot from the start,” says the Birdman. For example, by drumming on his chest with both hands. His right eye was also severely restricted. “I bumped into everything,” he says. And he’s still like that.
The consequences of the cerebral hemorrhage threw the artist into a state that he impressively expressed in a performance in 2016. For his “defecation” he had himself locked in a cell in an empty prison for two days, then also in a cage costume. “I feel imprisoned,” he exclaimed in this performance: “It hurts!” The nagging feeling of confinement and confinement also gave him his serious illness. Langner had previously described in his art what he then “experienced live himself,” says Tim Mrzyglod, managing director of the Tölz rehabilitation clinic, which specializes in patients with craniocerebral injuries. “He reported how he would like to break out.”
“Birdman” Hans Langner created more than 300 works in the studio in the Neurokom rehabilitation clinic in the first few months.
(Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
He also succeeded at Neurokom. “I have found my way back to my old self,” emphasizes the artist. The fact that his medication was all correctly adjusted played a decisive role in this. No less important was the workshop, where he was able to work in the course of the part-time therapy in the rehabilitation facility. There he became friends with Jochen Götz. At first, says the carpenter, Langner was told: “Now let’s take a picture.” But it doesn’t work that easily. A concept cannot be imposed on every patient, one has to be vigilant and attentive, says Götz. So the artist got his own studio in a former storage room – and a therapeutic miracle happened. In the first three months, says the carpenter, more than 300 works were created – “it was unbelievable, it just sparkled”. From the first day in the studio, it was “nice to see” for carpenter Götz how his artist friend was “developing into his old self”.
Before unveiling his large-format gold painting in the Neurokom foyer, Langner says he feels “reborn” after his rehab. He had lived and worked at the facility from December 2020 to early June this year, “I can start all over again now”. For managing director Mrzyglod, these words are the highest praise, “they alone are a gift,” he says. The neurocoma patients have their own methods to get out of the deep hole after the stroke of fate, with Langner this way was the art.
The Neurokom rehabilitation clinic on Buchener Strasse in the Tölz spa district is currently home to 43 rehabilitation patients. One of them was Hans Langner, who lived and worked there from December 2020 to June 2022.
(Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
The 57-year-old, who once lived in Ratzenwinkl near Tölz, would have liked to have stayed a little longer in the clinic in the spa district. “I would have liked to have extended,” he says. After his release, however, things were far from bad. Hotel director Ulrike Kless-Böker took him to Starnberg and even made her own studio available to him there. A golden time for the Birdman? Yes, he says and laughs: “My new color is gold.”