WHO WAS CLAUS BECK-NIELSEN?

According to Kraks Blå Bog - the Danish "Who's who" - Claus Beck-Nielsen was born far out in the Danish provinces as son of a major and a dogs breeder. He attended first and secondary schools, and since 1992 worked and lived as an author, songwriter, playwright, actor, cook, translator, critic and stage director.

To a foreigner this may sound impressing. As if Claus Beck-Nielsen was not just an artist, but a multi talented such, whose works and deeds had lifted him out of the grey mist of the masses and into the brightly lit hall of fame in Kraks Blå Bog.

But the fact is that Kraks Blå Bog is very voluminous, far too comprehensive for such an insignificant accumulation of sand as Denmark. And on top of this Denmark has the highest percentage of so called "artists" in the world. There is no doubt that Claus Beck-Nielsen like thousands and thousands of other younger persons in Denmark wanted to become an artist, there is no doubt that he wrote and played and staged and expressed and exhibited. But writing doesn’t necessarily make you a writer, playing the guitar doesn’t necessarily make you a guitarist, and expressing and exhibiting your inner or outer (lack of) self doesn’t necessarily make you an artist.

The truth is that outside the Danish book of fame, in the streets among the people of Denmark Claus Beck-Nielsen was not even well-known. Not even in tiny little Denmark. And he still isn’t. This is the truth.

But it doesn’t mean that the case of Claus Beck-Nielsen isn’t worth while studying. On the contrary: Claus Beck-Nielsen was typical for his time, for his culture. The Danish. The average man. The wannabe.

The only real deed that Claus Beck-Nielsen carried out in his lifetime was to marry a woman. And the only real trace he left in the Danish sand was a child, a beautiful little girl named Emma. But as his story is that of the average Danish man around the turn of the century, his marriage failed, he lost his child (to the woman), and in the autumn of 2001 he "gik bort" as the Danish say, he didn’t just pass away, no, he literally seem to have "walked off".

One year later, in 2002 Das Beckwerk was founded to "govern and develop the life&works of Claus Beck-Nielsen". But as Claus Beck-Nielsen wasn’t the Leonardo of his time, but rather just an average wannabe, the mission of Das Beckwerk is not to develop the works of a genius.

On the contrary the grand task of Das Beckwerk is to turn the failures of the average man into masterpieces, to turn the casual ideas of the wannabe into visions, to turn the life and story of the average human being into world history!