Background
Konrad Bayer was born on December 17, 1932, in Vienna, Austria. His family belonged to a middle class.
1959
Porrhaus, Vienna
The second Literary Cabaret Of The Vienna Group.
1959
Vienna
The 2nd literary cabaret of the Vienna Groupe. Konrad Bayer and Oswald Wiener.
1964
Dorotheergasse 6, 1010, Vienna
Konrad Bayer, Cafe Hawelka.
Universitätsring 1, 1010 Wien, Austria
Konrad Bayer attended the University of Vienna.
Konrad Bayer was born on December 17, 1932, in Vienna, Austria. His family belonged to a middle class.
Since the schooldays, Konrad Bayer was passionate about arts and poetry. Together with two friends, he founded an artists' club called "genie und irrsinn."
After graduation from high school, Konrad wanted to enroll at the Art Academy. However, due to the fact, his parents were against the idea, he had to change the focus and instead attended commercial courses.
Konrad Bayer finished the courses and got a job in a bank where he worked for six years. In the same period he continued to dedicate his life to writing and became a member of Vienna's Art club.
There, in 1951, Konrad met up with Hans Carl Artmann and Gerhard Rühm. A bit later their group was joined by Oswald Wiener and Friedrich Achleitner. Being united in their radical, experimental attitude towards art in 1954 they created Wiener Gruppe. They shared a progressive literary program and were drawn together by the common interest in Baroque literature, surrealism, dadaism, futurism, constructivism, and expressionism.
The Group's first collaborative works appeared in 1956. At that time, Bayer also ran the gallery of his friend Ernst Fuchs. One year later, he finally decided to give up the job at the bank and concentrated on writing. His two major works were Der Kopf des Vitus Bering and Der Sechste Sinn, an incomplete novel.
Der Kopf des Vitus Bering comprises a nonlinear presentation of images and thought fragments from the consciousness of Vitus Bering, the eighteenth-century Russian Arctic explorer. Through Bering and the metaphor of the Arctic landscape, Bayer reflected his own search for identity in the modern world.
This topic is continued in Der Sechste Sinn (Sixth Sense), which again employs a nonlinear presentation and is drawn primarily from Bayer’s Berlin diary of 1962. In Der Sechste Sinn Bayer speaks through the character of Franz Goldenberg, who, according to Joseph G. McVeigh in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, attempts "to arrive at a self-identity not determined by social conventions or sensual experience."
From 1957 the Group began its public performances. However, despite the success the literary cabarets reached, the Group failed to get financial support from the state. Besides, the literary efforts were often mocked in the media and, as a result, the members felt rejected and tried to find recognition abroad.
The winter of 1959/60 Bayer spent in Italy acting in a film by Ferry Radax, whom he had also worked with, in 1955. In 1962 Konrad Bayer became an editor of the avant-garde magazine edition 62. However, since he was still in search of recognition, in 1963 together with Rühm, he went to visit Artmann in West Berlin. They were awaited there by a more receptive public and managed to make immediate contacts. Bayer was invited to read at the Tagung der Gruppe 47 in Saulgau. There he met up with Ledig-Rowohlt, who offered him a contract for his unfinished novel Der Sechste Sinn. Though that must have been an important deal for an abandoned author, it seemed to be too late. On the 10th of October, 1964, Bayer committed suicide by gas.
Bayer wrote short "experimental" pieces. Several of them were published after his death in 1964. During his lifetime, he shared many of his works with other writers in the group, and in the early 1960s, Vienna theaters staged some of his short dramatic texts.
According to a commentator in the Times Literary Supplement, Bayer’s work provided "one of the models for the new generation of Austrian writers" working in the 1960s.
Vienna Group was a backstop of the anarchist spirit. As one of the founding members of the group, Bayer shared the common neo-avant-garde attitudes and the desire to break through the dogmatic life approach.
Konrad Bayer was a nonconformist by nature and liked experiments. He had an interest in a range of influences such as dadaism, surrealism, pataphysics, and combined in his works hermeticism, ecstasy, banality. As a result, Bayer gave birth to linguistic solipsism which has held increasing fascination for German writers.
Quotes from others about the person
There is a description of the experimental nature of Bayer's life in the book Samtliche Werke: "He experimented with himself, with his body. His wishes were limitless, he wanted to lie down, be invisible, and to be able to do everything."
Konrad Bayer married in 1960. His wife's name was Traudl.