Reception by the Federal President
for the Members of the Austrian Decoration
for the Science and Art Curia on October 14, 2025

English version:

Dear Mr. Federal President,
Dear Vice Chancellor Babler,
Dear Federal Minister Holzleitner,
Dear Bishop Hermann Glettler,
Dear Members of Parliament Werner Kogler, Ms. Künsberg-Sarre, Mr. Pöttinger,
Dear Members of the Art Council,
Dear Members of the Science Curia and Chairman Anton Zeilinger,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,

No doubt: anyone who takes a look at the two curiae—the Art Curia, art_curia, and the Science Curia—here and our colleagues abroad who are not present today—will immediately recognize:

If the “key to the present” is not to be found here, among the thinkers, artists, writers, poets, Nobel laureates and nominees assembled today—then where else?

And I have not even mentioned Peter Handke, Marlene Streeruwitz, or Teodor Currentzis—the designated members who, today, were also to receive the insignia and certificates of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art, the highest award granted in the Republic—presented by the Federal President himself. Unfortunately, the aforementioned are unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts.

But this is about more than an award.
It is about awareness.
It is about responsibility.
And ultimately: about whether thinking and art today still possess the power to open new perspectives.

For the present reveals itself to us in all its ambivalence—fragile and at the same time brutal.
A civilization that endangers itself and rediscovers the arms race as the only language of collective reason. Precisely for this reason, the “key to the present” is a challenge.

Perhaps—and this is more imagination than hope—this key truly lies here: in the union of art and science, in the independence of thought.
In the insistence on imagination, on doubt, on freedom.

For if such a world intellectual exists—the one the global community needs today more urgently than ever—then, my dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps he—or she—is to be found right here.

In these two councils, whose members are scattered around the globe—in laboratories, studios, in places where thinking and imagination still serve as the foundation of knowledge and creativity.

Perhaps this is precisely our task:
to keep this space alive—for doubt, freedom, and imagination.

Welcome! Welcome also to the new members: Teodor Currentzis, Katharina Grosse, Peter Handke, Victor Jerofejew, Marlene Streeruwitz.

A very special welcome to those present today:

Magdalena Jetelová, one of the outstanding internationally recognized contemporary artists, invited to the most important exhibitions such as Documenta. For decades, she was a professor at the art academies in Düsseldorf and Munich. Her work is characterized by radicalism and consistency.

Franz Schuh, author of numerous books and a literary philosopher, who describes himself as a “double agent” for philosophy and literature. DIE ZEIT once called him “probably one of the last all-round scholars in a nearly medieval sense. He is intellectually interested in almost everything and can connect almost everything with almost everything philosophically, historically, and dialectically.” In his capacity as a philosophizing writer, he holds academic teaching positions, which he—he assures me—fulfills with the utmost seriousness.

-pn

Website: Kurien der Wissenschaft & Kunst