#gesine borcherdt

[eelhound]

"Rituals are architectures of time, structuring and stabilising life, and they are on the wane. The pandemic has accelerated the disappearance of rituals. Work also has ritual aspects. We go to work at set times. Work takes place in a community. In the home office, the ritual of work is completely lost. The day loses its rhythm and structure. This somehow makes us tired and depressed.

In The Little Prince [1943], by [Antoine de] Saint-Exupéry, the little prince asks the fox to always visit at the exact same time, so that the visit becomes a ritual. The little prince explains to the fox what a ritual is. Rituals are to time as rooms are to an apartment. They make time accessible like a house. They organise time, arrange it. In this way you make time appear meaningful.

Time today lacks a solid structure. It is not a house, but a capricious river. The disappearance of rituals does not simply mean that we have more freedom. The total flexibilisation of life brings loss, too. Rituals may restrict freedom, but they structure and stabilise life. They anchor values and symbolic systems in the body, reinforcing community. In rituals we experience community, communal closeness, physically.

Digitalisation strips away the physicality of the world. Then comes the pandemic. It aggravates the loss of the physical experience of community. You’re asking: can’t we do this by ourselves? Today we reject all rituals as something external, formal and therefore inauthentic. Neoliberalism produces a culture of authenticity, which places the ego at its centre. The culture of authenticity develops a suspicion of ritualised forms of interaction. Only spontaneous emotions, subjective states, are authentic. Modelled behaviour, for example courtesy, is written off as inauthentic or superficial. The narcissistic cult of authenticity is partly responsible for the increasing brutality of society.

In my book I argue the case against the cult of authenticity, for an ethic of beautiful forms. Gestures of courtesy are not just superficial. The French philosopher Alain says that gestures of courtesy hold a great power on our thoughts. That if you mime kindness, goodwill and joy, and go through motions such as bowing, they help against foul moods as well as stomach ache. Often the external has a stronger hold than the internal.

Blaise Pascal once said that instead of despairing over a loss of faith, one should simply go to mass and join in rituals such as prayer and song, in other words mime, since it is precisely this that will bring back faith. The external transforms the internal, brings about new conditions. Therein lies the power of rituals. And our consciousness today is no longer rooted in objects. These external things can be very effective in stabilising consciousness. It is very difficult with information, since it is really volatile and holds a very narrow range of relevance."

- Byung-Chul Han being interviewed by Gesine Borcherdt, from "Byung-Chul Han: 'I Practise Philosophy as Art.'" Art Review, 2 December 2021.

#byung chul han #quote #quotations #ritual #ceremony #liturgy #time #community #philosophy #gesine borcherdt #faith #zen #christian theology #anthropology #consciousness #neoliberalism #capitalism

[hospice-worker]

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"I think trust is a social practice, and today it is being replaced by transparency and information. Trust enables us to build positive relationships with others, despite lacking knowledge. In a transparency society, one immediately asks for information from others. Trust as a social practice becomes superfluous. The transparency and information society fosters a society of distrust."

- Byung-Chul Han being interviewed by Gesine Borcherdt, from "Byung-Chul Han: 'I Practise Philosophy as Art.'" Art Review, 2 December 2021.

[cchiroque]

LEAN, OPINEN Y DIFUNDAN POR FAVOR.

[blinkypalermoblinkypalermo]

BLINKY PALERMO Oct 8th — Nov 21st, 2020 Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf

Blinky Palermo (1943-1977) is a myth, a tragic cult figure who died an artist who was so far ahead of his time that his work still resonates today, perhaps more so than ever. Palermo's oeuvre can be described as a more subdued and tender European version of Minimal Art and colour field painting, but for the Beuys student there was one thing above all: the search for himself. On the Maldives, where he had travelled after his last love, it came to an end. Blinky Palermo died as he had lived: intense and full of unfulfilled longing.

Palermo's work, which engages in nothing less than the tradition of geometric abstraction, is much more reduced and reflected than he was. It is full of triangles and squares as well as monochrome surfaces and objects sitting on walls in the form of fabric, wood or metal as spatial calculations of point and line to surface - themes that were brought into the present with classical modernism and brought to perfection in New York. So Palermo, one might think, actually came a little too late. But what he does is different from the art of his predecessors. His work is more mischievous and melancholic than the canvases of Malevich, Mondrian and Kandinsky, impregnated as they are with theory and theosophy. It is smaller than Barnett Newman, grubbier than Donald Judd, more smug than Brice Marden and warmer than Ellsworth Kelly. Palermo looks at the world and art and transforms what he sees into a geometric dream web: staircases and skyscrapers, pinball machines, heaven and earth, butterflies, the blue flower. A mirrored triangle with a black twin looks like nightlife with jazz music to him, a board painted over several times like a wounded soul. It is an abstraction that does not deny the narrative, but embeds the graphically formed present in a longing that can only be called romantic.

Palermo, who was born in Leipzig and grew up with his twin brother in Münster with adoptive parents, studied at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art with Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Imi Knoebel and Ulrich Rückriem. But Joseph Beuys remained his mentor. The fact that he moved to New York in 1973 therefore seems like a conscious detachment. In the meantime, he had taken part in Harald Szeemann's documenta 5, soon followed by an invitation to the 37th Venice Biennale. When Imi Knoebel comes to stay with him, both visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston and Michael Heizer's Double Negative in the Nevada desert. It is this abstract sky from which Palermo's art shoots out like a shooting star. He doesn't know it yet, but it is the attitude in which he retells the history of modern painting in his nonchalant manner, cheekily appropriating its previous achievements in order to inscribe a playful, dreamy note on it, which makes later generations of artists, from Günther Förg to Ceal Floyer, admirers of Palermo. The unquenchable thirst for life, which becomes a quiet smile in his work, is groundbreaking for the conceptually encoded search for an own identity and for localisation within the world, as is taken for granted in contemporary art today. No one has quite mastered the tightrope walk between humour and vision, audacity and elegance, quotation and self- determination as Palermo has.

At the beginning of 1976 he returned to Düsseldorf and followed his new girlfriend to the small Maldives island of Kurumba. Nobody knows exactly what happened here. Only that his companion suddenly finds a lifeless body in the accommodation. Under the Indian Ocean sky, far from any home, Blinky Palermo's star has burnt out. But his art still shines the way for all those who seek poetry and infinity in minimalism.

Based on the text by Gesine Borcherdt in the catalogue published for the exhibition

Pressetext

Blinky Palermo (1943-1977) ist ein Mythos, eine tragische, viel zu früh verstorbene Kultfigur – vor allem aber ist er ein Künstler, der seiner Zeit so weit voraus war, dass sein Werk bis in die Gegenwart nachhallt, vielleicht heute mehr denn je. Palermos Arbeit lässt sich als eine europäisch-gedämpfte, zärtliche Spielart von Minimal Art und Farbfeldmalerei beschreiben, hinter der für den Beuys-Schüler aber vor allem eines steckte: Die Suche nach sich selbst. Auf den Malediven, wohin er seiner letzten Liebe hinterhergereist war, fand sie ein Ende. Blinky Palermo starb, wie er gelebt hatte: intensiv, voller Sehnsucht, die unerfüllt blieb.

Palermos Werk, das sich in nichts Geringeres als in die Tradition geometrischer Abstraktion einschreibt, ist sehr viel reduzierter und reflektierter als er selbst. Es ist voller Drei- und Vierecke sowie monochromer Flächen und Objekte, die in Form von Stoff, Holz oder Metall auf Wänden sitzen als raumgewordene Berechnungen von Punkt und Linie zu Fläche – Themen, die mit der klassischen Moderne in die Gegenwart gerückt und in New York zur Perfektion getrieben worden waren. Palermo, so könnte man meinen, kam also eigentlich etwas zu spät. Doch was er macht, ist anders als die Kunst seiner Vorläufer. Seine Arbeit ist verschmitzter und melancholischer als die theorie- und theosophiegetränkten Leinwände von Malewitsch, Mondrian und Kandinsky. Sie ist kleiner als Barnett Newman, schmuddeliger als Donald Judd, süffisanter als Brice Marden und wärmer als Ellsworth Kelly. Palermo blickt auf die Welt und die Kunst und verwandelt, was er sieht, in ein geometrisches Traumgespinst: Treppen- und Hochhäuser, Flipperautomaten, Himmel und Erde, Schmetterlinge, die blaue Blume. Ein verspiegeltes Dreieck mit schwarzem Zwilling wirkt bei ihm wie Nachtleben mit Jazzmusik, ein mehrfach übermaltes Brett wie eine verletzte Seele. Es ist eine Abstraktion, die das Erzählerische nicht verneint, sondern die die grafisch geformte Gegenwart in eine Sehnsucht einbettet, die man nur romantisch nennen kann.

Palermo, der in Leipzig geboren wird und mit seinem Zwillingsbruder in Münster bei Adoptiveltern aufwächst, studiert an der Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie im Umkreis von Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Imi Knoebel und Ulrich Rückriem. Doch sein Mentor bleibt Joseph Beuys. Dass er 1973 nach New York zieht, erscheint also wie ein bewusstes Loslösen. Inzwischen hat er an Harald Szeemanns documenta 5 teilgenommen, bald folgt die Einladung zur 37. Biennale von Venedig. Als ihn Imi Knoebel besucht, besuchen beide die Rothko Chapel in Houston und Michael Heizers Double Negative in der Wüste Nevada. Es ist dieser Abstraktionshimmel, an dem Palermos Kunst hervorschießt wie eine Sternschnuppe. Er weiß es noch nicht, aber wenn er mit seiner nonchalanten Art die Geschichte der modernen Malerei neu erzählt, sich frech ihre bisherigen Errungenschaften aneignet, um ihr eine spielerisch-verträumte Note einzuschreiben, dann ist es diese Haltung, die spätere Künstlergenerationen von Günther Förg bis Ceal Floyer zu Palermo-Verehrern macht.

Der unstillbare Lebensdurst, der in seinem Werk zum leisen Lächeln wird, ist wegweisend für die konzeptionell verschlüsselte Suche nach der eigenen Identität und nach der Verortung in der Welt, wie sie in der Gegenwartskunst heute selbstverständlich ist. Den Seiltanz zwischen Humor und Weitblick, Unverfrorenheit und Eleganz, Zitat und Selbstbestimmtheit hat keiner so beherrscht wie Palermo.

Anfang 1976 kehrt er nach Düsseldorf zurück und folgt seiner neuen Freundin auf die kleine Malediveninsel Kurumba. Was hier geschieht, weiß niemand so genau. Nur dass seine Begleitung in der Unterkunft plötzlich einen leblosen Körper findet. Unter dem Himmel des Indischen Ozeans, fernab jeder Heimat, ist Blinky Palermos Stern verglüht. Seine Kunst aber leuchtet immer noch allen den Weg, die im Minimalismus nach Poesie und Unendlichkeit suchen.

Angelehnt an den Text von Gesine Borcherdt im Katalog, der zur Ausstellung erscheint.

#blinkypalermoblinkypalermo #blinky palermo

[lorenagrabinski]

Over three years I established a winter-flowering garden. I also wrote a book about it with the title Praise to the Earth [2018]. My understanding from being a gardener is: Earth is magic. Whoever claims otherwise is blind. Earth is not a resource, not a mere means to achieve human ends. Our relationship to nature today is not determined by astonished observation, but solely by instrumental action. The Anthropocene is precisely the result of total subjugation of Earth/nature to the laws of human action. It is reduced to a component of human action. Man acts beyond the interpersonal sphere into nature by subjecting it entirely to his will. He thereby unleashes processes that would not come about without his intervention, and lead to a total loss of control.

BYUNG-CHUL HAN

BORCHERDT, Gesine “I Practise Philosophy as Art” ArtReview, 02 December 2021, https://artreview.com/byung-chul-han-i-practise-philosophy-as-art/

#citas

[dominikruisinger]

In einer Zeit, in der Künstler die Werke anderer Künstler zensieren, in der Kunst Politik machen will und dabei genauso spießig, fade und unentschieden aussieht wie Angela Merkels CDU, brauchen wir ein Kunst, die sich nicht anpassen und die keine „Likes“ will, sondern eine Seele in sich trägt.

Gesine Borcherdt über Georg Baselitz

#kunst #art #artist #georg baselitz #baselitz #künstler

[eelhound]

"I think trust is a social practice, and today it is being replaced by transparency and information. Trust enables us to build positive relationships with others, despite lacking knowledge. In a transparency society, one immediately asks for information from others. Trust as a social practice becomes superfluous. The transparency and information society fosters a society of distrust."

- Byung-Chul Han being interviewed by Gesine Borcherdt, from "Byung-Chul Han: 'I Practise Philosophy as Art.'" Art Review, 2 December 2021.

#byung chul han #quote #quotations #anthropology #trust #community #relationships #information #philosophy #knowledge #gesine borcherdt #social media

[lorenagrabinski]

To me, everything that is is magical and mysterious. Our retina is completely covered by the cornea, even overgrown, so that we no longer perceive it. I would say that I am not a romantic, but a realist who perceives the world the way it is. It simply consists of magic and mystery.

BYUNG-CHUL HAN

BORCHERDT, Gesine “I Practise Philosophy as Art” ArtReview, 02 December 2021, https://artreview.com/byung-chul-han-i-practise-philosophy-as-art/

#citas