Back on Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse in 'Sale E Tabacchi', stood a black monolith with the number 28. Sale E Tabacchi is a beautiful restaurant and cafe recommended by T. After a while a woman came out of one of the doors of the monolith and had a conversation with the four people at the table beside me. I could see that there were two seats inside facing each other with a table in between. I could also see a pair of headphone draped over the back of one of the seats.
It turned out to be a Christian Boltanski project. He is collecting heartbeats. The black box was designed by "some architect" and the heart beat recordings were being taken by a lovely young German woman who kept getting mixed up between English and French. I was surprised by how valve like my heart sounded. I asked her about the number 28. She told me she felt too embarrassed to press the button to change the number displayed, a device to call the next participant, as it made a loud ringing sound that would resonate around the restaurant.
I could hear the conversation between the well dressed middle aged German man and his younger American male friend at the table beside mine. They were speculating about the black box. I interjected as I was getting up to leave, telling them it was a Christian Boltanski project.
"He's an arsehole."
"He is a very nice guy."
"Is he?"
"Yes. His art is shit but he's a really nice guy."
"All art is shit. There is only one artist over the past century who was any good my dear."
"Who's that?"
"Picasso."
"And Duchamp? And Beuys?"
"Beuys was a fucking lunatic."
"I agree about Duchamp. And of course Kurt Schwitters."
"He is shit. I have three Schwitters."
"Sell them."
"No, I wouldn't sell them if I were you."
"Do you want some sex?"
"No, I get enough thanks. Bye."
"Bye."
3 comments:
hi, another boltanski story is him sitting on the green in a yard in some outside of berlin location 1999. he just opened a bottle of red wine and is contemplating the artwork he has to come up with for a theater project- all in three days, and all in cooperation with jean kalman and ilya kabakov, who are both milling about somewhere on the grounds of this vast compound, which has been a russian army base, abandoned, a german army base, abandoned, a lunatic asylum, abandoned, and at the very start a spa- also abandoned. It is now (2008) some kind of ambitious luxury development. maybe. i lost track.
boltansky is contemplating his depression, while drinking, and the difference in physical appearance between us- berlin students working for money for him- and his elflike longlegged french beauties- students from the ecole des beaux-artes who he took with him to berlin on this trip. he is surprised by our confidence in using a drill. mind you, d. almost ruined a kabakov drawing on one of the walls with that drill. but then, the french elves are busy filling the 8 rooms of one of the front buildings with flowers. boltansky thinks we are more useful, but his eyes are busy following his elves around as they gracefully keep on picking up flowers. we keep on hobbling after kabakov, who is drawing tiny comic scenes on the walls in the old main entrance building. boltansky is on the phone again, seeing one of our half finished attempts of getting kilometers of fairylights hung up around the sporting grounds: "leave it, leave it, it looks just wonderful". kabakov: can i have a 30m black banner hanging from the tower of the heating block?
well, no, you can't.
opening is tomorrow, the whole thing was called "the fifth day" and was supposed to be an installation about the day after a 4 day session of wagner's ring opera.
impressive, but who cares now?
although it was quite fun at the time to see it grow....
further, greetings from cold town london. I hope you are having a great time, i just recover from a very good party weekend- no, nothing arty, thank god- and am watching the year disappear. see you soon
miss t xx
god, my use of past tense and present tense is below any primary school level!
sorry.
t xx
I like the slippage of tenses. It reflects the act of remembering very well.
Miss T, let me know the address of the army base/lunatic asylum/spa and I'll go take a photograph of the site. Oh, in Dublin slang, we call someone who is acting stupid a 'Spa'.
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