A.J. KAUFMANN   &   BILL SHUTE

“TWOMBLY’S  SIRACUSA“   (KSE #151)

The third Kaufmann-Shute collaboration, Twombly’s Siracusa is our attempt to capture in verse the essence of the work of the visionary, revolutionary American painter Cy Twombly. Twombly is someone who simultaneously brought painting back to its origins on cave walls and on animal hides while extending painting beyond the action painters and abstract expressionists into an artistic world like no one else’s. He is truly a genre unto himself, as might also be said about Tapies, O’Keeffe, or Warhol. There is also a classical base to much of Twombly’s work, a core—-often submerged, and often halfway erased visibly on the canvas—-rooted in Roman history-mythology or classical literature. And often Twombly’s work integrates the process of creation INTO the work itself. There’s no one remotely like him, and his work is endlessly fascinating and inspirational.

A.J. and I, being both fascinated and inspired by his work, decided to take on this ambitious project in the Spring of 2009, and we spent six months coming up with the concept, structure, stanza form, pattern of images, historical base, etc. and then doing the actual composing of the stanzas, with countless e-mails and attachments and Instant Messaging between Poznan, Poland, and San Antonio, Texas. Our classical base for this piece is the Siege of Syracuse from 214-212 BC, where the Sicilian city of Siracusa was overrun and conquered by the Romans, and the Sicilians used in the defense of the city a number of odd armaments created by the great inventor-scientist-mathematician Archimedes, who is a strong presence in our piece. But Twombly’s Siracusa also resonates beyond that period in Sicily, all the way up through the present, and as in Twombly’s work, the creation of this piece is integrated into the piece itself.

Twombly’s Siracusa is our most ambitious collaboration so far (and it’s not without humor—-after all, who can use the phrase “cunning stunts” with a straight face!), and it is constructed with as much mirroring and symmetry and balance as a Persian carpet.  After all, as Hart Crane once wrote, “Poetry is an architectural art.” We feel that it will reward multiple readings and that it will remain fresh whenever one turns to it. Try it for yourself and see!

And when visiting Houston, Texas, please stop by the Twombly Gallery at 1501 Branard, near the Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel. I visit it two or three times a year when travelling through Houston, and it was a visit in early May 2009 that convinced me that A.J. and I just had to do this project now.  And we did!

A.J. and I are presently developing a fourth collaborative chapbook, although that one will be more of a “joint exhibition” than a true collab as the first three were. More on that in early 2010.

TWOMBLY’S SIRACUSA (KSE #151) is now available. 

In the US, books are $4 each postpaid, or you can get any three KSE chaps for $10 postpaid.  Send a check (or well-concealed cash) made payable to Bill Shute, 14080 Nacogdoches Rd. #350, San Antonio, Texas, 78247.  Outside the US, you can get any book for $5 postpaid, payable via paypal. Just write to django5722 (at) yahoo (dot) com and request a paypal invoice. For your 3-for-$10 deal, along with TWOMBLY’S SIRACUSA, you can choose from any of these other in-print chapbooks:

#150, MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, “Loons of a Dogman” (sound library series, volume 48) ;

#149, A. J. KAUFMANN, “via alighieri” (cinema poetry series, volume 3) ;

#148, MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, “vegas the hard way” ;

#147, BILL SHUTE, “nobody knows, nobody sees” (cinema poetry series, volume 2) ;

#146, MK CHAVEZ & MIRA HORVICH, “pinnacle” ;

#145, A. J. KAUFMANN & BILL SHUTE, “blues for duffy power” ;

#144, ZACHARY C. BUSH, “spin” ;

#143, A. J. KAUFMANN, “symbolisme psychédélique” (sound library series, volume 47). In memory of Sky Sunlight Saxon, issued simultaneously with KSE #142 ;

#142, BILL SHUTE, “plink, plonk & scratch” (sound library series, volume 46). In memory of Sky Sunlight Saxon, issued simultaneously with KSE #143.

#141, LUIS CUAUHTEMOC BERRIOZABAL & CYNTHIA ETHERIDGE, overcome ;

#140, BILL SHUTE, subtraction ;

#139, A. J. KAUFMANN, antiquewhite rain (sound library series, volume 45) ;

#138, BILL SHUTE, the stumble (sound library series, volume 44) ;

#134, RONALD BAATZ, headlights from the otherside of the world ;

#132,  DOUG DRAIME, knox county (photographs by Lena Ozuna) ;

#130,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, odd years .

I primi decenni del secolo in genere sono stati decenni chiave. Pensateci: 1304, Giotto agli Scrovegni; 1401, il duello Brunelleschi Ghiberti per la porta del Paradiso; 1508 Michelangelo sulla volta Sistina; 1600-1610, gli anni di Caravaggio. Nulla di epocale nel 700 e nell’800. Ma poi nel 900 i primi dieci anni presentano un’infornata memorabile dal Cézanne estremo, alle Demoiselles d’Avignon, all’esplosione di Matisse…

E questo decennio che si sta per chiudere come passerà alla storia? Proviamo a ripercorrerlo con una breve rincorsa. Gli anni 80 erano stati quelli in cui l’arte era tornata a respirare, a volte in modo un po’ beota, dopo l’assedio del decennio precedente. I 90 sono stati quelli di un nuovo furore contro un modello di mondo in cui l’invocata libertà si era tutta tramutata in immensi bonus per i banchieri: è stato il decennio della Young british art, della performance di Marina Abramovich alla Biennale, delle cose per cui Damien Hirst avrà un angolino nella storia. È stato il decennio dell’addio all’ultimo gigante del 900, Francis Bacon. E il primo decennio del terzo millennio? Non è stato un decennio pieno dell’energia che nel passato dava ogni voltar di secolo. La cifra va cercata, io credo, in un moltiplicarsi di voci, in un’orizzontalità in cui mancano punte di riferimento. Una qualità diffusa senza acuti straordinari. È stato un decennio “partecipato”, in cui l’arte ha sentito di dover dire la sua sugli affanni del mondo. A volte s’è fatta strumento di un miglior vivere per tutti (il caso di Alberto Garutti in Italia). S’è chinata ad avere un profilo meno protagonistico: la Biennale del 2009, in questo senso, ha centrato in pieno l’anima del decennio. Arte socializzante.

Detto questo quali sono le cose più belle del decennio? Provo ad avviare un elenco, che è un elenco aperto a suggerimenti e correzioni di rotta. Al primo posto ci metterei Cy Twombly (le rose immense, 2008; o Paphos 2009). Poi Gerhard Richter (Snow White, 2009; ma anche le coraggiose vetrate del Duomo di Colonia, 2007); Sigmar Polke a Punta della Dogana, con le sue enormi pareti tese, come smaltate di fango. Poi mi sono rimaste negli occhi la porta di Kounellis all’orto monastico di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme a Roma, i nove lenzuoli di marmo di Cattelan sempre a Venezia, e Natalie Djumberg, la più ossessionata del decennio.  E poi Anselm Kiefer con il suo Merkaba. E la svolta candida di Baselitz.

“Wilder Shores of Love”, de Cy Twombly, 1985; óleo, cera y lápiz sobre contrachapado.

Danza absoluta y extásica de la viscosidad del amor visceral.

Screaming fields of sonic love.

From the moment we first welcomed guests in 1979, fine contemporary art (and photography) has been an integral part of the modern American dining experience we’ve offered at Michael’s. Here’s a small sampling of the tasty images that hang on the walls of our restaurant in Santa Monica.

“Double Standard” by Dennis Hopper.

"Boy" by Kim McCarty.

"Roman Numerals" by Cy Twombly.

"Blue" by Helen Frankenthaler.

"Singerli Variation" by Frank Stella.

"Celia" by David Hockney.

Von Volker Sielaff

(Aus dem Vorwort des von ihm herausgebenen Bandes “Der Humor der Wolken – Moderne Poesie aus Taiwan”)

Der Herausgeber schreibt dazu:

im Auftrag der TAIPEH BOOK FAIR FOUNDATION habe ich die Lyrikanthologie „Der Humor der Wolken – Moderne Poesie aus Taiwan“ herausgegeben. Wie der Untertitel schon sagt, soll das Büchlein – vor allem den deutschen Leser – mit der Poesie Taiwans bekanntmachen. Die meisten Übersetzungen fertigten Sinologen an, einige Gedichte habe ich, mit Hilfe von Tang Wei … selbst nachgedichtet.

Die Sammlung wurde für den Auftritt Taiwans auf der Frankfurter Buchmesse zusammengestellt, aber Tang Wei aus Taipeh und ich werden das Buch auch in Dresden vorstellen: am 21. Oktober, 19 Uhr im Stadtmuseum, Wilsdruffer Straße 2 und auf Einladung der Zeitschrift „Ostragehege“ (die zudem an diesem Abend ihr 15jähriges Bestehen feiern wird).

Alles begann mit einem Gedicht. Oder sollte ich besser sagen: einem Geschenk? Denn das Gedicht wurde mir von Wei Tang überreicht, nachdem ich, als Gast einer internationalen Übersetzer-Werkstatt, aus meinem Buch „Postkarte für Nofretete“ vorgelesen hatte. Für sie, die bereits mehr als 30  Bücher aus dem Deutschen ins Chinesische übersetzt hatte, stellte jenes Gedicht den ersten Versuch einer Übertragung aus dem Chinesischen in die für sie gar nicht mehr so fremde deutsche Sprache dar. Der Titel des Gedichtes gefiel mir. Es ging eine fast sommerliche Ruhe von ihm aus: „Glück nur zwischen einer Kanne Apfeltee-Zeit“.

Mir sagte besonders das Wort „Apfeltee-Zeit“ zu, von dem ein gewisser Zauber auszugehen schien. Die „Apfeltee-Zeit“, das mußten wohl jene kostbaren Minuten oder Stunden sein, in denen wir, auch nach der Vertreibung Adams und Evas aus dem Paradies, „auf den Kissen die die Zeit anhalten“ einfach glücklich sind. Ich las das Gedicht, während mein Zug schon ins Elbtal einfuhr. Zur Linken waren durch das Zugfenster die ersten Weinberge zu sehen. Ich las und korrigierte eine Zeile und noch eine, ersetzte ein Wort durch ein anderes, das mir treffender erschien. Doch dann machte ich einen fatalen Fehler. Ich glaubte, mich von meinem Lieblingswort trennen zu können, weil mir schien, daß es  dem Gedicht nichts hinzufügte, was dieses nicht ohnehin schon in sich trug. Ich schickte meine bearbeitete Fassung nach Taipeh, zu Wei Tang. Die las sie, fand sie schön, legte aber umgehend Einspruch ein: das Wort „Apfeltee-Zeit“ könne man unter keinen Umständen durch das Wort „Apfeltee“ ersetzen. Ich verstand ihren Einwand und nahm mir das betreffende Gedicht noch einmal vor. Jetzt stand da wieder „Apfeltee-Zeit“, und nur in der letzten Zeile liess ich „Apfeltee“ stehen, weil ich den Schluss in dieser Form intensiver und stärker fand.

In der darauffolgenden Zeit schickte mir Wei Tang weitere Übersetzungen chinesischsprachiger Gedichte. Eine kleine Auswahl daraus findet sich in diesem Buch, andere sind bereits in der Literatur- und Kunstzeitschrift „Ostragehege“ erschienen.

Als Wei Tang und ich uns zwei Jahre später in Berlin wiedersahen, zeigte sie mir „Pink Noise“, das transparente Buch der Dichterin Hsia Yü. „Wie ein Eisblock im Aquarium“, sagte Wei. Die Seiten dieses 2007 erschienenen Werkes sind aus durchsichtigem Kunststoff, die Texte in chinesischer und englischer Version überlagern einander. Man muß, will man die Gedichte dieses Bandes lesen, ein weißes Blatt dazwischenschieben. Mir scheint das weiße Blatt eine schöne Metapher für die Übersetzung von Poesie und für das Dichten im allgemeinen zu sein. Beginnt doch damit jeder geschriebene Text. Mit dem weißen Blatt, das unsere Gedanken und Bilder aufnimmt. Als Ideogramme, wo ein Zeichen für einen Begriff steht, wie im Chinesischen. Oder als Buchstaben, wo ein Zeichen für einen Laut steht, wie im Deutschen. (…)

Ich bin beim Übersetzen auf Interlinearversionen angewiesen. Auf der anderen Seite gibt mir das die Freiheit, mich in das Gedicht einzufühlen und einzulesen. Was ist eine Übersetzung? Wie viel oder wie wenig hat sie noch mit dem Original zu tun? Es geht, soviel ist sicher, immer um Annäherung. Man kommt, als Übersetzer bzw. Nachdichter dem Original mehr oder weniger nahe. Man erreicht es nie. Vielleicht handelt mein Gedicht „Nähe des Falters“ auch vom Übersetzen, von der Schwebe zwischen den Dingen und den Worten:

„Du hast sie noch nicht erreicht.
Schon bist du einmal getroffen
Vom letzten Flügelschlag.“

Dank Internet und E-Mail wechselten die verschiedenen Fassungen schnell zwischen Wei Tang und mir hin und her. Doch unversehens fanden wir uns darin (Verszeile für Verszeile, während zwar nicht der Apfeltee, doch aber der Grüne Tee auf dem Tisch im Garten des Literaturhauses in der Fasanenstraße dampfte), Entsprechungen in der deutschen Sprache zu suchen. Entsprechungen in Wörtern, Strukturen, Rhytmen. Vielleicht sind das ganz neue Gedichte geworden, Adaptionen ihrer Originale? Vielleicht kommen sie ihren Originalen und dem, was die taiwanesischen Dichter ausdrücken wollten, nahe. Wichtig ist: ein Austausch findet statt. Die Poesie ist in Bewegung.

„Beim Schälen der Birne um Mitternacht“ ist der Titel eines Gedichtes von Luo Fu, des „primus inter pares“ der modernen taiwanesischen Poesie, das wir in Berlin zusammen übersetzten. Andere Gedichte, etwa „Mond im Fluss“ von Zhou Mengdie, der wie viele junge Poeten erst 1947 als Studentensoldat vom Festland nach Taiwan übersiedelte und dort der einflussreichen Lyrikergruppe „Blauer Stern“ beitrat, wurden von Martin Winter übersetzt. Zhou Mengdies Poesie ist stark von der klassischen chinesischen Philosophie und dem Buddhismus beeinflusst, es wird kein Zufall sein, daß der Mond in seinem Gedicht sich ausgerechnet im Ganges spiegelt. Ich denke, dieser Dichter hat eine tiefe Beziehung zum Fliessenden, zum Wasser und zur Fähre, die sich, ein „dreieckiger Traum“, darauf bewegt. Das Fliessen ereignet sich im Verborgenen, wird kaum bemerkt. Auch das Blut fliesst in uns, aber wir merken es kaum. (…)

Den 1928 geborenen Luo Fu kann man als eine Art Vorläufer der sogenannten „obskuren Lyriker“ Taiwans begreifen. Ich habe von ihm zwei Zeilen gelesen,

die man auch poetologisch verstehen kann: „Trinken und Dichten / Geschehen meist ganz spontan“. Wahrscheinlich ist es nicht ganz so einfach, denn gerade Luo Fu`s Gedichte sind sehr genau gearbeitet, voller Anspielungen und Zeichen. Aber für den Dichter ist Spontanität wichtig, die erste Assoziation, die erste Zeile oder der erste Strich, wie bei Cy Twombly.

Interessant finde ich die engen Verbindungen mancher taiwanesischen Lyriker zur westlichen Literatur. Nicht wenige von ihnen haben in den USA studiert und an dortigen Universitäten Lehraufträge angenommen. Das ist etwa der Fall bei Zheng Chouyu, einem „Modernisten“, dessen lakonischen Ton man aus der westlichen Dichtung zu kennen glaubt.

Luo Fu

Beim Schälen der Birne um Mitternacht

Frierend und durstig
sehe ich mit ruhigem Blick
auf dem Teetisch um Mitternacht
eine koreanische Birne.

Eine meine Hände
schön kühlende
bronzegelb schimmernde
Birne,
die nach dem Schnitt
in ihrer Brust
einen tiefen, tiefen Brunnen
sichtbar werden läßt.

Schockiert
nehme ich
ein Stück der rohen Birne
zwischen Daumen und Zeigefinger.

Unschuldiges Weiß.
Das Messer fällt zu Boden,
ich beuge mich, es aufzuheben.

Ach! Überall dort
meine bronzegelbe Haut.

Current exhibitions at: Gagosian Gallery New York. Actual artist: Cy Twombly – “Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves” – Exhibition dates are 25.09.09. Get more information about Cy Twombly -

Kunstlexikon.

– Museum or Gallery informations: New York, Gagosian Gallery by Wikipedia.org / Portal:Arts. Buy arts from Cy Twombly or find objects, articles or web-projects? Art online: Cy Twombly by adaweb.com | Biography – Textportrait from Cy Twombly by Cy Twombly. Articles and texts:

Textimages: Madonna (Ralph Ueltzhoeffer 2009)

Ralph Ueltzhoeffer: Textportraits.

EXHIBITION – artist: Cy Twombly, location: Gagosian Gallery New York, date: 25.09.09 / current exhibitions at: Gagosian Gallery New York 2009. Artistinformation and biography-text from: Cy Twombly Gagosian Gallery New York CATEGORY: art, modern art, projects: TEXTPORTRAITS Cy Twombly by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer and Laura May. More information about Cy Twombly Exhibition Gagosian Gallery New York, United States.

New entries: actual 0

Madonna / Portrait (TEXTPORTRAIT).

textportraits by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

Gagosian Gallery New York; Künstler: Cy Twombly; Betitelung: Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves – Zeitraum der Ausstellung: 25.09.09. Kunstausstellungen (USA) aktuell: Gagosian Gallery New York (2009). Weitere Informationen über: Cy Twombly: Biografie/Biography — | Galerieninformationen/Gallery: Cy Twombly — Weitere geplante Ausstellungen: Gagosian Gallery New York von Cy Twombly — Cy Twombly Kunstportal: Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org). Mehr aktuelle Informationen über Cy Twombly Gagosian Gallery New York.

Beitragsforum Kunst & Kultur allgemein:

Textportrait: Madonna.

Textportraits – Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

This fall, Gagosian Gallery, one of the world’s foremost modern and contemporary art institutions, adds one more selling outpost in Athens, Greece. The new gallery marks further expansion of Larry Gagosian’s empire, who began with his first space in New York in 1979. With the Athenian addition, there are now ten locations worldwide, which span New York, Beverly Hills, London, Rome, and Hong Kong, and make Gagosian one of the few that can lay claim to a truly global reach. The new Gagosian in Athens kicks off on September 25, with an exhibition of new paintings by Cy Twombly entitled Leaving Paphos Ringed With Waves, due to run through December 19, 2009.
more…

CY  TWOMBLY  GALLERY             Houston, Texas

Although we are still finishing up our BLUES FOR DUFFY POWER collaboration, A. J. Kaufmann and I have been putting together another collaborative work we hope to have done by the end of 2009: a long-form poem that is both inspired by the work of American painter/sculptor  CY TWOMBLY and that attempts to transpose the techniques and themes and aesthetic of his work to the poetic page. Yes, that’s a tall order, but we have a tendency to set ambitious goals for ourselves….otherwise, why bother?

I mention this because I’ll be passing through Houston next weekend on the way to Galveston, and I’m going to take the opportunity to once again visit the CY TWOMBLY GALLERY while there. It’s an amazing place in that it is certainly one of the few galleries dedicated solely to a living artist, and each room is “themed” featuring related works and often multi-part works, so each room is an “environment” where one can truly feel Twombly’s work and experience his vision. Talk about someone who has created his own unique aesthetic!!! A. J. and I are excited about this venture, and I look forward to spending some time taking in the vision of the master next weekend in Houston…

 CY TWOMBLY, On Returning from Tonnicoda (1973)

Tate Modern| Past Exhibitions | Cy Twombly

2 Responses to “Cy Twombly”. David G. Says: July 21, 2009 at 5:27 pm. Blessed to have the Twombly museum here in Houston! It&s really moving to see the collection in the flesh – massive paintings, sculptures and delicate drawings. …

Supported by the Cy Twombly Exhibition Supporters Group, Tate International Council, the American Patrons of Tate and the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. Cy Twombly, Quatro Stagioni: Primavera. (A painting in four parts) 1993-4 (detail) …

Cy Twombly Coronation of Sesostris Panel 1. via tate.org.uk. Labels: American, Art, Modern, Painting. 0 comments: Post a Comment. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). About. I work as a financial consultant in …

Cy Twombly Coronation of Sesostris Panel 1. via tate.org.uk. Labels: American, Art, Modern, Painting. 0 comments: Post a Comment. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). About. I work as a financial consultant in …

Cy Twombly Coronation of Sesostris Panel 1. via tate.org.uk. Labels: American, Art, Modern, Painting. 0 comments: Post a Comment. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). About. I work as a financial consultant in …

Gustave Dore, “Daniel in the Lion’s Den”

Back now from my third and final trip of the last 4 months, this time to Denton and Galveston to help my son Eric move. I picked up some kind of bug at the tail end of the trip (perhaps from the polluted brown Gulf of Mexico water I swam in?), and after returning to San Antonio on Monday to a tedious eleven-hour day of jury duty, I’m now resting at home and nursing this cough/cold, which is giving me a much-needed break from my job, my writing and KSE editing/publishing, etc.

Just yesterday Zachary C. Bush sent me the final edit of his new SPIN chapbook, which is actually part one of a two-book sequence. ZCB read me these poems aloud when I visited him and Krista in Jersey City in May, and I was blown away by them. I don’t feel that articulate today, so I won’t attempt to describe them…wait for the blurb when the book is released in a week or two. All I can say is that these poems represent a new level in Zachary’s writing which is, paradoxically, both more complex and more accessible than some of his earlier work. It’s deeply rooted in his Southern background, which he seems to have adequate distance from (now that he’s in NY/NJ) to write about in a detached yet rich manner. I love these poems, and I will be proud to share them—-and the second volume, which will follow in a few months—-with the KSE readers.

Working with A. J. Kaufmann is always a joy, and I have three things to discuss about that. First, A. J. and I have just issued our two chapbooks dedicated to the late Sky Sunlight Saxon: A. J.’s SYMBOLISME PSYCHEDELIQUE (KSE #143), and my own PLINK, PLONK & SCRATCH (KSE #142). I’ll have a post about each one soon. Here they are:

Second, I’m in the middle of our collaboration BLUES FOR DUFFY POWER, which you can expect in September, I hope.

One of the images I’m using throughout is that of bluesman as prophet, as the shaman-Jeremiah in the wilderness truth-telling to a people who aren’t listening. With that in mind, I’ve been re-visiting a number of Old Testament prophets, starting with the 12 “minor” prophets (I got an excellent book on that subject while in Ruidoso, NM), and also Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, which I’ve been working my way through recently (thus the Dore artwork above). Page five of DUFFY POWER, the mid-point or “pivot” in the piece,  will echo the dreams/visions found in Daniel. Like yours truly, A. J. Kaufmann is interested in the formalistic aspects of poetry, and I must say we have devised a unique structure for this chapbook, which will probably be a nine-page work. I won’t give the structure away at this point.

Thirdly, A. J. and I have another long-term collaborative project that we’ve begun work on, a chapbook inspired by the painting of CY TWOMBLY, and which attempts to mirror in poetic form the structural and thematic aspects of Twombly’s artwork. When I visited the Cy Twombly Gallery in Houston earlier this year, I just knew I had to attempt something like this, as Twombly’s work—-collected in a beautiful museum devoted ENTIRELY to this one artist and organized into thematic rooms each of which presents multiple related artworks—-took my breath away. A. J. was familiar with CT’s work and was excited to join me on this project. This is a long-term project and I doubt you’ll be seeing it until late 2009 or early 2010, but projects of this type require a lot of preparation and background study. I hope the end result will be worth it.

In other KSE news, I have the completed manuscript now for MK Chavez and Mira Horvich’s PINNACLE chap

which will be out in September, and also Misti Rainwater-Lites’ new VEGAS THE HARD WAY chap that will be out in October. Both of these are newly written multi-poem suites, composed especially for the KSE format. They are important new works from two of the nation’s finest working poets. And only $4 each in the US ($5 elsewhere). How can you go wrong with that?

Well, in honor of the late, great, one-time El Paso resident Raymond Carver (who was a friend of my first wife Kathleen when he lived in EP…read her excellent article about him in an old issue of the Hollins Critic), I think I’ll take a swig of Ny-Quil, and then get back to Daniel, who just survived that night in the lion’s den and is back having dreams and visions again. Maybe if I take a second swig of the Ny-Quil I’ll have some of my own…

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

ps, there’s a new review of my FACE TO FACE (KSE #101) chapbook over at Michael Aaron Casares’  ”Over Your Radar”  blog. You can read it here: http://overyourradar.blogspot.com/2009/08/bill-shute-face-to-face.html

A feast to celebrate fertility & maturity – Ferragosto - Augustus’ holiday. I came across this at a Tate Modern exhibition of works by the American artist, Cy Twombly. The coming of August has reminded me of it. As with many such Roman festivals, the Catholic Church has Christianised it as the Feast of the Assumption, celebrated on 15th August.

It is the pagan feast that captured my imagination. There is a need to feel the searing, suffocating heat of the Roman late summer. Cy Twombly as a young artist incarcerated himself in his studio, in an abandoned & deserted Rome, during August 1961. He produced his Ferragosto series of five paint-encrusted & scribbled canvases, an orgiastic outpouring of smears, ejaculations & bleeding. I can’t say that I found these works particularly accessible. I needed the explanatory notes to make sense of the Augustan madness.

I was more drawn by the two versions of his two Quattro Stagioni, where his mature use of colour captures the movement from the youthful vitality of spring, through sensual summer & idle autumn to the encroaching death of winter.

This leads back to Ferragosto’s combining of the sensuality of high summer with the fecundity of autumn, a time when transient youthful pleasures give way to the enjoyment of what they produce. The thought came that I’m between the two, in a time of seasonal transition.

Not the easiest of feasts to celebrate in a cool, damp English August, nor with English reserve but one ripe for rediscovery. Middle-age is not something that our culture likes to celebrate. Ferragosto suggests that it should, that fun is to be had beyond our obsession with perpetual youth. Let the feasting begin!

The amount of people who happen upon this blog because they’re performing an image search for Garfield the Cat is mindblowing. My mind lands across the room every time I see new evidence of this trend. It goes flying.

He’s a lovable rascal, that Garfield. There’s no blame here.

***

I finally visited the Art Institute’s Modern Wing last Thursday with Kimbo.

Because it was free, we stood in a long-but-swiftly-moving line to get inside. And once we were inside, Kimbo was asked to check her backpack. And then she had to drain the contents of her water bottle, because she was not permitted to check her bag with a water bottle inside, containing water, which–as we all know–contains dangerous, flesh-eating properties, which would compromise the safety of the Art Institute’s coat check employees; water which would spontaneously re-arrange its molecular structure to become an enormous Water Monsterperson, breaching the boundaries of Kimbo’s backpack and surging through the museum lobby on a Flesh-Eating Mission aaaaaaaaaaaaaieeeee!

But I digress.

Once we made it to the Wing, it was lovely. I did get lambasted by a security guard for allowing my hand to gently touch the wall in the Contemporary exhibit. I just wanted to see what it felt like.

SECURITY GUARD: Don’t touch the art!

I wish I could get lambasted for some real misdemeanor in an art exhibit. If they’re going to raise their voice to me from across the room, as though I’ve literally just LICKED A PAINTING, why not really give them something to cry about?

SECURITY GUARD: Are those goldfish?

Now we’re talking.

***

Herewith: What I liked, and what I didn’t like, in the Modern Wing. Obviously, visual art is a wildly subjective medium blahblahblahblaaaaaah, and what floats my boat mayn’t float yours. Also, I should just say that modern art–specifically, “contemporary” art–usually feels incredibly insincere to me. I get all worked-uppy and irritated and hackled, looking at it. I wrote a song, while I was wandering the Modern Wing, and these are the words:

I’m self-indulgent, and I have my work in the Modern Wiiiiiiing

Finally, while I concede that Everything In All the World is Technically Art, I will not concede that chairs are art. Exhibits of chairs have stuck in my art-craw for years. It’s a chair.  You sit in it.

Ugh.

Go ahead. Call me a Neanderthal.

YOU: Isn’t it “Philistine”?

***

WHAT I LIKED IN THE MODERN WING

1. Cy Twombly exhibit

It’s up right now, until mid-September. Sehr gut.

2. Anything Max Ernst 

Especially “Spanish Physician”, and wouldn’t you know it? This is the sole example of that painting on the entire Internet:

Seriously, if it were bigger, I bet you’d totally like it.

3. The building is very pretty and spacious, as buildings go.

4. The Architecture and Design rooms, sans the aforementioned chairs

The delight of this exhibit was in the wee drawings; the architect sitting somewhere at some point with a piece of paper, scrawling scribbles and lines that are bound for buildinghood one day. Framed. Love.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE AT THE MODERN WING

1. Cary Leibowitz’s “Photo Booth Fortune” 

We’re talking about the Modern Wing. The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the most prestigious art museums in the world.

We’re talking about a series of photo booth pictures with fortune cookie fortunes affixed to them.

Am I missing something here? I’m missing something, obviously. Because this piece looked like dreck to me; but who am I to say? I’m just an untutored plebe, is what I am. I’ll just pardon myself right out of here and go look at A PICASSO.

2. Almost anything in the contemporary rooms

Or: The part of my brain that appreciates wall-mounted squares of orange glass is inoperable. And it’s not because I think Art Is An Oil Painting, full stop. It’s because those rooms felt aggressively uninteresting, uninspired, and unconnected to the viewer. Many a museum-goer, no doubt, has wandered past “Photo Booth Fortune”, and found themselves transfixed. I just didn’t receive the impression that the artist cared about the moment in which the audience–the viewer, the listener, the reader–closes the circuit that the artist starts when they make their art; the circuit that’s only complete when another human being participates in what the artist creates; when they look, when they listen, when they read; when they trust your intentions, and your intention should be to come to them honestly and with real meaning. Without that moment, you’ve got nothing. Lean your art up against a wall in the garage: No one needs to see it but you. Why do you care if we take a look? You’ve made it clear that you don’t need us; or worse, that you need us to react with confusion or disgust or ennui. We’re not supposed to work so hard to understand what you mean, and that goes for oil painters and poets alike. I’m not picking up what you’re putting down. And you’re putting down bells and whistles.

La la la la la la!

So Kimbo and I got some coffee and tea, right? They have a little counter, with beverages and suchlike; it’s not fine dining. It’s a pit stop, with artsy trash cans. There was a guy our age behind with us, with his lady. Kimbo heard him say:

GUY: How long ago did you brew this coffee? Can I taste it?

I bet that guy totally loved the chair exhibit.

Those chair designers are standing right behind me, aren’t they?

Blue Mountain Lake

I sense the trees’ light filtering the room–
knowing nothing about the tulip tree
canoe flipped so its stomach slopes up,
scuffed by quartz tumbled in the shallow drag.
I’ve walked here in the wetness holding rain,
endangered lady slippers dipping petal shoes,
dashes of pink in mud–and you’re not here.
In my dream you write IBIS above
BREAD and RUM–block letter, the R tail
ripped quick, down, as if something shoved your pencil.

There’s a sense of inversion–the tumblehome’s
inward curve of canoe above the water
faces the floor now, would be sloshing in wetness,
inversion in the wood blurring white
sky and itself in the lake. I knew you.
On shelves, round grass or twig baskets
fill with nothing. Tiger lilies are dying.
I’ve heard the dark rustle along your house,
my fingers glowing around a flashlight and touching
blackness, leaves, lumps of chewed blueberries.

Tyler Caroline Mills

I wrote this entry on my way from Nuremberg to Berlin (i.e. in the afternoon of 29 June), but because the wireless internet connection at my hostel wasn’t working, I was unable to post the following 5 entries until now. Note that none of the photos in this entry are mine.

After visiting the three Pinakotheks, I thought I had seen all the great art museums in Munich (Haus der Kunst was closed during my time in Munich, and I am not counting the Glyptothek because neither ancient western civilization nor the Renaissance fascinates me very much). But no – there was still one more to visit, that being the colourful Museum Brandhorst adjacent to the Pinakothek der Moderne, which opened in May this year and houses a good private collection of 20^th century art. Sarah G. and Keith, who had both been to the museum before I did, had a lot of praise for it. So when Professor Jennings sent out an email saying that he would be visiting Brandhorst last Wednesday and mentioned that the Princeton-in-Munich program would be paying for admission, I was eager to join.

Since our final test was not far away and our class had to read 23 pages of Die Verwandlung for Thursday’s precept, nobody else came. But I honestly didn’t mind. I enjoyed listening to Jennings’ narration while visiting the Martin-Gropius Bau in Berlin with him (blog entry here), so I was glad to be doing something similar again. And this time, since I had the professor to myself, I could theoretically ask as many questions as I wanted to.

The museum was bigger than I expected it to be (Keith described it as very small, but then he visited on the €1 admission day, on which it was exceptionally crowded), but still not big enough to store the amount of art that it had. Art, after all, cannot be displayed like items in a supermarket. The viewer needs space to observe it from different angles without obstruction, to walk around and ponder, to explore how art alters its surroundings, in order for the art to have its full effect. In Jennings more metaphorical words, art needs room to breathe. So one of the rooms which had a Joseph Beuys juxtaposed with a bunch of minimalist works, and another one which was overstuffed with Andy Warhol, didn’t please me so much.

Nevertheless, there were a lot of good things about the museum. Right at the entrance, for example, was a sculpture by John Chamberlain which consisted of parts taken from destroyed cars in a junkyard. I was not that much of a fan, but I must admit that it showed how the most unlikely objects can be of great aesthetic value.

Four works were of particular interest to me. The first one was by Sigmar Polke, a member of the Dusseldorf Three, who are arguably the most famous post-WWII German artists. Titled Die Drei Lügen der Malerei (The three lies of the art studio), it consisted of a band of colourful handprints, a segmented tree without leaves, and a grey mountain with a missing horizontal strip in the middle. The fact that the artist considered traditional beliefs in art to be lies says a lot about the passion for innovation and desire for breakthrough in post-war art, and I think that this work more than any other expresses the shift in attitudes very well.

Left: Exterior of the museum; Right: Sigmar Polke’s Die Drei Lügen der Malerei

The second one was Lepanto, a set of 12 paintings by the American artist Cy Twombly. Almost the entire top floor of the museum was occupied by Twombly’s works, some of which got rather repetitive. There was, for example, a tennis-court sized room dedicated to paintings of roses – same contours and patterns for each painting, just different colours. Lepanto, however, was enormously fascinating. It showed the victory of the Holy League as it fought the Turkish fleet in a sea battle at the Gulf of Patras in 1571, which was a decisive point in the Christian struggle against the Ottoman Empire. Military triumph was an extremely popular in pre-modern art such as what is seen in the Alte Pinakothek, but modern day artists generally prefer to express anti-war sentiment and reveal the ugliness of military conflict through their work (Picasso’s Guernica, for example, expresses grief at the great suffering caused by the Spanish Civil War). Taboo as though it may be to glorify war, the choice of theme here was oddly refreshing. There were magnificent depictions of grand fleets sailing in the gulf, and roaring fire annihilating the enemy, but somehow these were set on a tranquil light blue background reminiscent of a pond in a Claude Monet painting, allowing for a lot of freedom in interpretation.

Part of Cy Twombly’s Lepanto

The third one was a Damien Hirst, one of the most famous and controversial modern-day artists. I was absolutely baffled when I read about one of his works, which was an entire zebra preserved with formaldehyde in a rectangular container, going for a world-record shattering price at an auction. This one in Brandhorst was a medicine cabinet, around five metres wide, with a mirror frame and back, as well as narrowly spaced transparent partitions. Laid on the partitions were medical pills of all origins, purposes, colours, shapes and sizes, and as absurd as this sounds, it looked fantastic. One would not be able to fully understand it, however, without knowing the title: In this terrible moment we are victims clinging hopelessly to an environment that refuses to recognize the soul. It can in fact be taken as social commentary – the cabinet of pills, a very artificial means of healing inevitably intertwined with mass production, dependence on substance, and consumerism, is indeed a reflection of the contemporary world. The inability of each pill, despite its unique properties, to distinguish itself from the rest, is compared to the desire of the modern individual to preserve his own identity and stand out in society, a desire unfulfilled due to proliferating tendency for generalization. One can only appreciate the diversity of these pills – as well as the diversity of our world – by avoiding crude generalizations and giving detail the attention it deserves. After viewing this work, I decided that I would never look at a Damien Hirst in the same dismissive manner again.

Damien Hirst’s In this terrible moment we are victims clinging hopelessly
to an environment that refuses to recognize the soul

The final one was a documentary by Anri Sala. Back in the Cold War Days, his mother was a youth leader in a communist movement, and the artist discovered a few tapes which showed her giving an interview – and speaking in the bureaucratic, aggressive and almost undecipherable way many communists did at the time. The tape did not have any sound, so the artist took it to a school for the dumb and deaf, where he had the students read her lips in the video in order to make out what she said. To see how the mother, now a typical member of upper-class capitalist society, at first adamantly deny her involvement in communism, later on in great embarrassment admitting her past, and trying (largely in vain) to justify her actions reminded me of how difficult yet necessary it is for people to come to terms with their own histories. I am currently reading Bernhard Schlink’s Der Vorleser, which addresses a similar topic, and I will try to post some thoughts when I’m done.

I know some of my readers come to this blog just for the sake of my descriptions of food, so I’ll end by saying that after visiting the exhibits, Jennings and I went to the museum café, where we met Sarah. She had been so impressed by the cake at this museum on her visit that she decided to come back just to eat. I ordered a Kirchetorte (cherry cake), and though I am not very fond of cherries, I am salivating as I now recall its taste. And the Apfelschorle, produced by Perger, was the best I have drunk in Germany so far. I will definitely be looking for more Perger products as I travel to Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg.

ArtMag has been on hiatus due to my recent move.  As I find new places for my belongings and begin to decorate my apartment, I am reminded of one of my very favorite magazines: Nest.

Nest was a quarterly magazine of interiors, published from 1997 to the winter of 2003/2004.  Each issue of Nest is a feat of creativity and design.  Just glancing at the covers, with their yellow spines, gives you a glimpse of the amazing design choices made by editor Joseph Holtzman and his staff.  One issue has holes punched through it, another issue is inside of a clear zipper bag, one has scalloped edges, one is bound with red string, and others have embossed paper and glitter.  No shortcuts were taken in producing Nest, and each cover is just as elaborate as the interiors and lifestyles contained within.  Some of my favorite covers include issue no.4(1999:spring) which is a photograph of cats inside of a bedroom, their litter boxes sprinkled with copper glitter and issue no.21(2003:summer) which has a colorful collaged image on the front and scalloped edges.

But now to get to the interior of Nest.  Besides the wonderful covers, excellent design decisions, and fancy paper, Nest is unique because it isn’t just a magazine about the spaces of the rich and famous.  The articles span a wide variety of people and places.  In issue no.4 there is an article with photographs of Cy Twombly’s mansion alongside an article about a man who lives in a junkyard near the MetroNorth tracks in Harlem.

One of my favorite articles, in the summer 2001 issue, shows the interior of Ft. Thunder’s space in Providence, R.I.  The photographs of their space show walls completely plastered with trash, grafitti, stickers, posters, photographs, etc.  It’s like a treehouse junkyard.  One photograph shows their screen-printing setup and in the same spread is a photograph of two members of Ft. Thunder dressed head to toe in knitted outfits: stockings, tunics, and masks.  The rehearsal space where bands like Lightning Bolt practiced is also shown, as well as a room with hundreds of stuffed animals hanging down from the ceiling.  At some point in 2001 the warehouse space was destroyed by developers, but the funky feel of their space lives on in the pages of this issue of Nest.

In the winter of 2003/2004, editor Joseph Holtzman wrote at the beginning of Nest that he was in a psychiatric hospital and that this issue would be his last.  When The New York Times reported on the demise of the magazine, they wrote that Mr. Holtzman had spent somewhere between 4-6 million dollars on Nest.  Although he had hoped it would be profitable, it never was.  And, although he was wealthy enough to keep the magazine afloat, he claimed he had run out of ideas and energy.  You have to have respect for someone who quits when they are on top and every issue of Nest is a testament to that.

———————————————————————————————————————-

If you miss the excitement of reading the latest issue of Nest, Apartamento is a great contemporary.  It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Nest, but is refreshingly simple in it’s design and just the right size for reading in transit. In an earlier issue of my blog I wrote a review of Apartamento, which published it’s first issue last summer.  In a similar fashion to Nest, Apartamento is “an everyday life interiors magazine.”   Unfortunately the most recent issue, no.3(2009:spring) is already sold out!  And it’s hard to find in the United States.  So if you have purchased Apartamento in the U.S., leave a comment and let us know where we might be able to find it.  I bought my copy of issue no.2 at Motto Berlin.

Another fun place to look at interiors in on the webstie: The Selby.  Created by fashion photographer Todd Selby, The Selby is all pictures, with barely any content.  It is an engrossing glimpse at the interiors of the rich and famous.  (The photograph below taken by Todd Selby is of Melia Mardern and Frank Sisti Jr.aka Kid America’s bookshelf in their Manhattan apartment)

While I’m on the topic of interior spaces and homes, I wanted to mention some new venues for looking at art that are popping up in New York City.  Hosting exhibitions in apartments is becoming more and more popular, especially as galleries close down and museums lay off employees.  Apartmentshow NY and Melanie Flood Projects are two ongoing curatorial projects to keep an eye out for.  They each represent the opposite ends of this trend.  Apartmentshow NY is curated by artists Joshua Smith and Denise Kupferschmidt.  For each show the two find an apartment, usually one that has been emptied out due to a move, and fill it with artwork for one night only.  They have hosted performances, installations, video art, paintings, and sculpture, and have showed a wide variety of artists from Peter Coffin to Alicia Gibson.  Melanie Flood Projects, on the other hand, is held in the Clinton Hill brownstone apartment of Melanie Flood.   I have only been to one event in the space: March Madness.  It was a low key gathering, mostly with artists selling small objects, magazines, zines, photographs, and other ephemera around the island counter in her kitchen.  Events like these seem warmer, no doubt because they are in a home, whether inhabited or not.

Enver Konopke (r) in seiner Paraderolle als Hermann Nitsch

KONOPKES JOB

für jou

Die Nachricht schlug im Salon ein wie eine im Gottesdienst geworfene Wasserbombe: Enver Konopke, unser selbsternannter Paradiesvogel, der einmal einen mehrtägigen Schluckauf bei Altlyriker Anatol Blankenvers ausgelöst hatte, indem und weil er sich selbst als „metaphysisch unbehost“ bezeichnet hatte, Konopke also, der unverbesserliche Schnorrer und durch langjährigen Alkoholmissbrauch stark verwirrte (Konopke: „Wieso’n jezz ditte? Missbrauch is höhssens, wennssu dich damit die Füße einreibst!“) Sohn eines preußisch-protestantischen Pedanteriewarenhändlers aus Rixdorf, hatte neuerdings, so mussten wir trotz aller ungläubigen Verblüffung realisieren, einen Job! Einen veritablen Arbeitsplatz! Und zwar, wie er kryptisch per unfrankierter Postkarte mitgeteilt hatte, „im Auslandseinsatz, höheren Orts in der allerobersten Welt-Kunstszene“! Erregt bestürmten wir Frau Geisträtin Mag. Isolde Kobloch-Gumpertting, Winterseels alte Integrierte-Gestalttherapeuttin, Psychoanalytikerin und Holographologin aus Wien, die uns die gute Botschaft mit verschmitztem Lächeln erläuterte: In der Tat sei Konopke, der religiös so hoffnungsfern Verwahrloste, bei einem mehrtätigen Casting auf Schloß Prinzendings als einer von mehreren Doppelgängern eines berühmten, nichtgenanntwerdenwollenden Wiener Malers und para-mystischen Aktionskünstlers engagiert worden!

Ein paar Augenblicksmysterien lang senkte sich eine Stille über den Salon, daß man das räuspernde Knospen, Knispeln und Knobeln von Milliarden Synapsen hören zu können meinte. „Neiiin!“ kreischte es dann, Sven Aaron Mangold, der Einserjurist, war wieder mal der Fixeste, „neiiin! Vom Nitsch? Doch nicht vom Nitsch, oder? Vom Blut-und-Hoden-Nitsch?! Konopke und … Nitsch??!“ Die Wiener Seelenprofessorin schmunzelte mit jenem unnachahmlich unergründlichen Analytiker-Gesichtsausdruck, den sie, dem Ondit nach, noch von Sigmund Freud selbst in mehrjähriger Lehranalyse übertragen bekommen hatte, und schwieg zur beredten Antwort ihr aufmunternd-vorurteilsfreies Ich-höre-Ihnen-zu-Schweigen.

„Wie? Wie’n Wien? Wassn? Wer issnn-ndieser Nnüscht?“ fragte Miss Cutie aufgeregt in die Runde. Sie schnupfnäselte noch, nach ihrer in einer Schönheitsnase mündenden Beauty-OP. Ironischerweise waren es ausgerechnet die Aquavit-Zwillinge, die schon mal einem „Orgien-Mysterien-Theater“-Spiel des berühmten Aktionskaspers Hermann Nitsch beigewohnt hatten. Verstanden hätten sie damals Nitsch nicht, nix, nüschte,  aber es sei sehr sinnenaufpeitschend, mystisch, mythologisch, liturgisch und para-ekklesiastisch, eklektizistisch und sogar auch etwas bemüht pseudo-dionysisch-orgiastisch zugegangen. Oder, um es mehr in der genuinen Ausdrucksweise der Aquavit-Zwillinge zu formulieren: Es war wohl in jeder Hinsicht „eine ziemliche Sauerei“ gewesen, bei dem mit dem Blut und Gedärm einer geschlachteten Sau herumgeschmiert worden wäre und, so Hauke, „so’ne s-plitterfasernackte Christussi hatten sie doa an so’n SM-Kruzifick-Kreuz angebunnen, und die mußte denn so’n ganzen Humpen Schweineblut runnerschlucken…“ – „Bah! Näh, was fürn Schweinkram!“ krakeelte Oma Hager im Brustton tiefsten Angewiedertseins dazwischen. Hinnerk ergänzte noch, man hätte zu dem Spektakel noch „so nebelartige Waber-Klang-Musik-Mansche“ gespielt, „so elektronische Softporno-Musik wie bei ‚Schulmädchenreport’“. (Hauke korrigierte: „Du meinz Emmanuelle Teil III!“)

„Und was hat nun unser Kamerad, der olle bekloppte Konopke, mit diesem Schweinkrämer zu tun?“ brachte Blankenvers die Diskussion wieder auf den Punkt. Nun, dies war rasch erklärt. Originalkünstler Hermann Nitsch sei es seit seinem 70. Geburtstag unendlich leid, überall den impertinent-beleidigenden, unverschämt-anmaßenden, nichtganzvondieserweltseienden Kunst-Naturburschen und Hundsbua zu geben. Das unentwegte Leute-Beleidigen, Kapriziösitäten-Vorgaukeln und Assistenten-Herumschubsen sei ihm in seinem Alter nicht mehr allein zuzumuten! Daraufhin sei die Entourage des Meisterswingers und Profi-Orgiasten auf die Idee verfallen, nach kleinen, drummeligen Opas mit grauem Bart und irrem Blick zu suchen, die evtl. nicht ganz richtig im Kopf, emotional instabil und metaphysisch beschlagen genug seien, um Nitsch an drei Abenden der Festspielwoche überzeugend zu doubeln und zu vertreten. Ende vom Lied: Enver Konopke hatten sie vom Fleck weg genommen und eingestellt! Mit Vertrag, Sozialversicherung und Ausfallgarantie!

Traurigkeitslehrer Arnold Winterseel, wie immer bemitleidenswert fröstelnd in sein schwarzes Samt-Sakko gewickelt, war gerade zur Tapetentür eingetreten, als aus dem Hintergrund eine straffe Sportsdame, die – wenn Fredi Asperger, der mir diese Information steckte, das denn mal richtig verstanden hatte –, als Modezarin firmierte und ihre Abstammung auf etwas undurchsichtige Weise vom finnischen Weihnachtsmann (?!) ableitete, mit einer Frage den verqualmten Luftraum durchschnitt: „Ist denn dieser Herr Konopke, wenn er von der Kunstwelt als Kunst-Nitsch akzeptiert wird, somit denn nun selbst auch als Künstler zu betrachten? Oder ist das vom Nitsch-Double Konopke vergossene Schweineblut weniger dionysisch-mysterien-orgiastisch als das vom Original-Nitsch verschmierte?“

Dr. Wintersell räusperte sich, um zu einem Vortrag über Ontologie, Semiologie und Phänomenologie des Orginalkunstwerks, der Kopie, der Fälschung und des Selbstplagiats anzusetzen, als die Amazone einfach weiter schwadronierte: „Weil, nämlich, ich kenn da einen angeblichen Star-Künstler, Cy Twombly, den gibt es in Wirklichkeit gar nicht, den hat man bloß erfunden, um mal zu testen, was fürn doofes uninspiriertes Gekritzel man den Leuten noch als Kunst verkaufen kann!“  Abermals stieg – wie „weißer Nebel wunderbar“ – Stille empor zwischen den Sitzgruppen. Diesesmal handelte es sich jedoch nicht um eine Schwingung des sprichwörtlichen Engelsflügels, sondern um frostig peinliche Betroffenheit. Alles starrte gebannt auf Winterseel, der, wie jeder sonst wusste, enger Freund und autorisierter strukturalistischer Exeget Twomblys gewesen war, und an dessen Stirn jetzt eine Vene deutlich pochend hervortrat. – Der fällige Vulkanausbruch blieb jedoch aus.

Winterseel seufzte nur milde und murmelte: „Gewiß, liebes Kind, der Meinungen sind viele, in Sonderheit der irrigen, aberwitzigen oder sonst der Häresie, Blasphemie oder Hebephrenie verdächtigen…! – Still, einer jeder in sich gekehrt, gingen wir an diesem Abend heim, allerlei Denkwürdigkeiten wägend.