i read through my anecdote from Sunday again and again and don't find the point. or let me say a conclusion is missing. in both cases it is about respect towards artworks. the first example is about a deferential behaviour defined by the frame it is happening in (art exhibition). the second one is a pragmatic approach to prevent damages of the material in order to leave the object in the state it was created by the artist. in short - conservation, which is also applying to the first one though. because, sitting on a sculpture and banging with shoes on it might change the stone in a way it was not planned by the artist. but at that time, i understood Immendorff's complaint rather as an advice not to destroy the picture than worrying about the state of the material.
Ohne Titel* (untitled)
Sunday, 19
anecdote
something that here and then comes to my mind (probably i've already told that story), especially when i see people using objects or things in a way they weren't planned for... During my art school time in 1982, we had an exhibition in Hamburg -Halle 6- at Kampnagel-Fabrik, where our then academy professor Ulrich Rückriem took part among others (Sol Lewitt, Astrid Klein, R. Long, B. Naumann...). At the opening, some youngsters didn't know better than to sit on one of Rückriem's granite blocks. I was standing next to the block, when Jörg Immendorff (that time teaching as guest prof at HfBK) came rushing and shouted at the students that they immediately had to come down from the block. He explained that they should give respect to an artwork. In that very moment i realised, that me too, i hadn't been aware of the youngster's behaviour. I didn't see anything wrong in sitting up there. Somehow the block volunteered to sit on it, as there were no chairs provided. Nowadays i think different. A few years after that incident, the lady of the that time restorer/conservator couple Faltermeier at the museum for ancient arts in Basel explained to me how every human touch on a marble sculpture leaves behind grease, which in turn needs sophisticated techniques to be removed again.
*https://fhh1.hamburg.de/Behoerden/Kulturbehoerde/Raum/artists/hall1.htm
Friday, 17
despite the difficulties the pandemic is evoking at the moment, we succeeded in finding a shop in Kerr Serign. the first picture shot less than a week ago (11/4/2020) comes out to be historical already. our painter Ousman Sowe decided to paint not only the room white, but the front as well. click on the picture to see the updated actual version (16/4/2020).
Coronavirus*
Thursday, 2
In these difficult times, RAW Material Company would like to share the work of our partners and colleagues who are still creating and sharing knowledge.
This week, Chus Martínez tells us about the motivation behind her Corona Tales, an "archival exhibition" of sorts.
"I started writing Corona Tales some 20 days ago. I was reflecting on how people — in central Europe and most of the media — address the outbreak of the virus as an unprecedented disaster. I then deduced that one possible contribution as curator/writer would be to write a short story a day in an Instagram channel to which many have access. I grew up with my grandparents till I was four, and so did my cousin. Our parents had migrated to a big city — mine to Barcelona — his to Switzerland, to work. My grandparents took care of me and I developed the closest and most beautiful relationship with them. Their childhoods had been marked by extreme poverty. The Spanish flu left my grandfather orphaned. My grandmother’s family, from the same small village in the north west coast of Spain, was forced to encourage their children to help and work for money. These circumstances were reflected on by them, but with no trace of sorrow or bitterness. The recovery was so slow that my mother could not afford to attend school and it was only when she got married that my father and her enrolled in a night course. The stories are about these two generations. For me, it is a bit like curating an archival exhibition, hopefully providing you with the tools to imagine the pictures that go with it.
But, I also thought, now that we cannot meet, if I post every day around 7pm a story and you read it, you are a little bit with me, we are “gathering” in the space of the tale as we would be in an opening or an event. Many are just creating the anxiety of contraries: now that the real escapes us, then we go digital. But, I don’t think it is a question of offering you all videos and tutorials and millions of Whatsapps etc, I think it is a moment which demands that we identify our vulnerabilities, how the COVID-19 crisis is being generalized, how to research ways of doing, and so forth."
facebook post by Raw Material Company
Tale SEVENTEEN: the MORNINGS (March 22) Chus Martinez
After that lunch together at the Frankfurt, she and her new friend from the leather clothing atelier, started going out more often together. All her life she had had breakfast at home and, actually, she had only been in a restaurant once. This women, though, had very clear and different ideas of what constituted the routines of a working woman. She encouraged her to prepare breakfast for her child and then meet her before entering the atelier, around 8:15, at the food market. The neighborhood markets of the city were blessed with family-run cafés and lunch businesses consisting of nothing but a counter. These counters were not large, and everyone —mostly women—were seated literally touching each other. It was hard for her, at first, to understand where the fun of it was. Day by day, however, she felt how her own body was demanding that nearness. She was surprised about the naturality with which everyone screamed what they wanted to drink —cortado, cafe con leche, carajillo…—and how they requested a „flea“ sandwich of jamón, a dwarf croissant, or a bikini (a toasted sandwich cut in two triangles) to go with it. The two women sat in the middle of that choir and received the greetings of the community. „Guapas! I am almost done here and will let you my seat in a minute.“ Or: „Ladies, are the kids already at school?“ She could barely open her mouth to answer. So, the group referred to her friend asking: „When is the mudita (the small mute one) going to bless us with her voice?“ She responded every day with a different proposition: „When the frogs grow hair?“ Or: „That week with three Thursdays?“ This repertoire of provocation and answer was mandatory, it felt like a morning Aria where all the singers knew the lines. She then discovered something that never crossed her mind before: That she also hated cooking and could spent every meal at a counter with others enjoying food her hands never touched. And she found herself smiling every morning at all those companions of her newly discovered joy.
*Illustration created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. Image by CDC/ Alissa Eckert, MS and Dan Higgins, MAMS, courtesy the CDC.