Bird on a wire

A documentary  by Tony Palmer about Leonard Cohens 1972 European Tour

here a short outtake out of the original

Leaves are falling quietly. They need time until they reach the ground. Leonard Cohen takes all the time he needs. He watches. And then he sings. He is inside out. Modest. He walks around in a parallel universe with all the clocks sleeping. Maybe he is stoned, most probably. It doesn’t matter. Deeply vulnerable and deeply confident at the same time. Words are powerful. Each word weighs as much as a train.

At a certain point in time the artist is one with his words and for some magical reason it communicates to everybody around. This time passes, as the artist changes, the words stay the same. There is nothing to do, but to marvel over the time when the words were truly alive and be thankful for documents like the film “Bird on a wire” .

The film seemed lost for almost 40 years . It has been restored out of old material and put back together . It was recently shown on the BBC.  (see BBC  iPLAYER website -only uk)

Artists Image

Hans Peter Feldmann’s Shadow- scape at Berlins Hamburger Bahnhof

A simple, humble and wonderful installation in the second floor of the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. The balance between mondane plastic objects and their magical shadows is effortless. Maybe a little ‘habitat’ but through it’s simplicity and honesty transgressing Scandinavian bedroom design.

The writings of Max Goldt

A recent picture of Max Goldt

When I was 20 I hitchhiked to Berlin to visit some friends who recently had squatted a house in East Berlin. The Wall had come down two years earlier. They were punks. I am trying to remember the name of the boy I stayed with, but I just can’t recall it. What I can recall is that he reminded me of a somewhat scruffy Limahl and made his money by baking and selling onion cakes in the bars and pubs of the neighbourhood. He also introduced me intensely to the writings of Max Goldt. A satirical german writer who had found some following as the writer of a column in “Titanic” . I was never a huge fan of “Titanic”, but from the beginning I was touched by Max Goldts writing.

The last thing I have heard of the squatters was that they were bought out by property developers. It was said they purchased an all terrain truck from the money and drove down into the deserts of Northafrica.

Max Goldt never left me and his books were, through the 90ties and 2000ties, my connection to Germany. His subtle surprising writing on everyday subjects caught what was going on in Germany better than any other writing or reporting I came across. Sociology studies on goings on or magazine articles in comparison just scratched the surface of what Max Goldts essays delivered. Moreover its funnier than some of the wittiest english comedy writing, which is traditionally the best in the world. Max Goldts talent is truly unique. I never understood why he stayed so unrecognised by the cultural elite in Germany for so long. Finally in 2008 he was honoured with the Heinrich von Kleist prize for literatur.

I am not sure if there is a way to translate the subtleties and cultural references his writing makes, but I found a blog where somebody gave it a go. I don’t think it is possible but You can have a read for yourself and see what You get out of the text. The essays I like most are from the 90ties. They are more anarchic and richer in content and images.

Markus Vater

Link to english translations of some of the essays

Wikepedia article

A time to celebrate

My soul and my bank account are connected. This is new and a great surprise. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. I get sad when my bank account looks sad and I get happy when my bank account looks happy. I feel this must be the first step to the initiation.

I have been also visited by the ghost of fear. The ruler of fate. Like a thousand vicious ants has the small print  entered my conscience. I am going through mountains of never read papers, sent by insurance companies and feel how darkness enters my soul. Do I pay to much. Something outside of me had been born that rules me know. A  paranoia based on truth. Everybody, everybody just wants my money.

Is this the game? I duck down and start making some armour. The hunt begins. Where is it cheapest or best value for money. I paint my face with stars and stripes and start roaming the internet. Am I the man I want to be. Do I have control again ? It feels like it, but I have changed. I feel possessed ,although I should feel possessing. I don’t like this wind. Its not my wind. It makes me forget to breath.

“Zorba the Greek” and our drift away from existential war experience

Zorba shows Basil his scars

Recently I saw the film “Zorba the Greek” . It brought a thought to the surface that had been popping up again and again :

Our world ,the Middle European and Middle American, is mainly ruled by a generation of politicians ,economists, businessmen and lawyers which have been born after the last world war. Their policies and decisions can’t be ruled by an existential experience of war . (and so can’t mine)

The decision of the UK government to start a war with Iraq is an example. As I recall reading in the independent the head of the army warned Tony Blair of the consequences of beginning a war.

But war had openly become a tool of politics again. It had been secretly and under limited circumstances for years ,but never as openly. Which indicates, that also societies existential feelings towards the topic have drifted. Although the protest against the Iraq War was larger in numbers than the protest against the Vietnam War its drive wasn’t as consequential. It was just further away from the last existentially experienced war and therefor had much less effect.

The widow cries before she sleeps with Basil

The widow and Basil

The film ” Zorba the Greek” comes from a another time. It seems to be woven out of a substantially different fabric altogether. It appears ancient brutal. Humans are faced with a cruel tribal society, a resisting nature and all the basic factors that limit human life. Michael Cacoyannis the director of the film had been in the war and so the members of the cast. Something swings beneath its images and words that is harder and sadder and more alive than in films made today in Europe. Its a feeling I have and I probably do a lot of very good films of today great injustice, but I just haven’t felt this undercurrent anywhere made in our time. It doesn’t seem possible. Visibly “Zora the Greek” is not a war film ,but the material its made from : its actors, its words, its images are soaked with war.

Madame Hortense on her deathbed

The main characters in the film must watch the women they love die, powerless, without being able to stop it. They are failing and stripped down to the bone. Still they celebrate whats left. They dance together. The important thing is love and its celebration and protection. This view which Zorba personifies springs out of a life where he had fought ,killed and raped. Out of the experiences of war.

A villager cuts the throat of the widow

I am not the best advocate for my observation, as I have never experienced war. It is a detached observation. But in the way the film ” Zorba the Greek” disturbs me and stands in front of me like an ancient animal points to this gap in my life experience. The film is hard , direct and beautiful. There is no metaphors in it . It is what it is.

Zorba and Basil dance together

Markus Vater

PURE BEAUTY / John Baldessari at the Tate Modern

Photo courtesy of The Broad Art Foundation Santa Monica

Without any doubt John Baldessari is one great artist : Full of wit ,sensibility, self-critic, humour, intellect, connections, age and political awareness.

He has a great retrospective exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. The parallel running Pop Art exhibition is no rival. In comparison It melts into one colourful heap of plastic.

Baldessaris exhibition is curated in historic order. The beginning at the beginning. I like it as it gives you a very good sense of how his work developed.

I don’t want to go into details about the show. Only show some great pieces. (peaces)

One thing though I could observe which bugged me :  Even the good and aware artists are not entirely free in their choices. The dealers (galerists) and the market definitely have a word to say. You can clearly see the production value rise in the course of the exhibition. The palette changes with the money you have to your disposal. Money changes the art. It doesn’t mean it makes it worse, but it changes it even if you are a  clear, independent and intellectual artists. I am probably only stating the obvious, but I do it anyway.

The question though appears who are you making the work for. I picture the being as a large one eyed woman with a pearl necklace made from factory buildings, private schools, husbands and something small like a screw. Her dress is floaty and beneath you hear the screaming of playing children. She also wears a wig, that is like a flytrap and full of artists sticking to it. Her eyes have fully diluted pupils ,so that you can’t tell their colour.

Markus Vater

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Photo courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery NY

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Detail: Cigar Smoke to Match Clouds that are the same , 1970-1971, photo courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery NY

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Prima Facie (Third state):From Aghast to Upset, 2005, photo courtesy of Baldessari studio

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from Baldessari Studio Archive