Drawing (30) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"A small encyclopaedia of my fractured arms: As an 11 year old, I broke my right forearm jumping over a tent. The complicated fracture was nailed. I wasn’t allowed to take part in gym for months, which I hated anyway. Many Nazis degraded from German to gym teachers continued to work there. When I was 12, I fell from my bike and broke my arm again, so I was excused from gym once more. As a 13 year old, I was run over by a bicycle. The broken bones along with the bent silver nails grew on crooked. At 14 my elbow was deliberately broken to remove the nails and set the arm correctly. I was still allowed to take it easy and meanwhile started smoking cigarettes. The quintessence: Unconsciously caused fractures of the arm for fear of Nazis teaching sports, in addition, addictive experiences with the release of opiates produced naturally by the body when fractures occur. For this reason the opium tent. " (From: arsenal, january 09).

(1984)

Drawing (31) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"Mouches volantes in front of two windows of the library of the State University of New York at Binghamton, 1974. With almost closed pupils and in great radiance, the surface of the eyeball and small parts and their shadows swimming or floating in their vitreous body become perceptible. Sight refers to itself and the eye becomes self-reflective. This was first described by Hermann von Heimholtz. I sat in the Max Reinhardt Archives and was revolted by my research. I finally read Karl Krauss's Why the Fackel Does Not Appear in Die Fackel No. 890-905, whose 315 pages were published at the end of July 1934. It is the best essay I have ever read in German. Before that I read the four-page edition of Die Fackel No. 888 with the speech Kraus made at the grave of Adolf Loos on August 25th 1933 and his poem "One ask not, what over all that time I did" which those who did the journalistic legwork of the terror did not fail to ridicule. And thus I closed my "Reinhardt" chapter." (From: arsenal, july/august 2012).

(1974)

Drawing (32) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"August 2012 continued: So, in Summer 1974, I stared at the ceiling of SUNY Binghamton's library and tried to wipe the mouches volantes from my eyes and answer the question what could still be said about 'celebrities' after Karl Krauss had outed them in Die Fackel Nr. 890 as a never-ending source of no-news. Under the headline 'Max Reinhardt escapes train disaster' we learned that during Christmas 1933 near Lagny in France Reinhardt had ALMOST become the victim of a train disaster. In 1993, Frankie Goes to Hollywood's publicist gave a proper response: Holly Johnson, the band's singer, did NOT die in the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie because he had missed the plane. That was about as sensationally funny as when noble-minded film critics from West Berlin produced eccentrically cryptic preciosities to hone a film historiography that does not even exist." (From: arsenal, july/august 2013).

(1974)

Zeichnung (33) aus DIE BASIS DES MAKE-UP

"Krude Landschaften, Abbruchkanten und das Bewußtsein, darin eingesponnen zu sein und nicht mehr daraus zu erwachen. Die Atomisierung meiner Gefühle, aus der sich kein qualitativ neues Element ergibt, hat ihre Logik. Ein Flug zu den Filmfestspielen in Edinburgh (BORO) mit dem Film Normalsatz Anfang der 80er Jahre. Ich hatte schon einmal 1965 auf dem Felsen, von dem sich dort traditionell die verzweifelt Verliebten stürzen, gesessen und einen Personenzug bei seiner Einfahrt in einen Tunnel unter einem Friedhof beobachtet. Ganz anders als bei Hitchcock. Bevor sich die Welt in Zucker, Fett und Kohlehydrate aufspaltete, wie hier an einem Schokoriegel exemplifiziert. Ich dachte an David Larchers Fahrt in eine Autofalle auf Martinique und das Emblem seines Lastwagens als Stempelabdruck. In der Projektion zerriß die Filmkopie dann genau in der Szene, in der meine Super-8-Kamera umkippte. Ich rutschte von der Bank, schlug mit dem Gesicht voran zu Boden und krieche seitdem in Spurenelementen herum." (Aus: The End, Disko 22, 2011).

(1983) 

Zeichnung (34) aus DIE BASIS DES MAKE-UP

"Die schwarze Garderobe. Im Closed-Circuit-TV ist das Abbild eines gerahmten Bildes an der Wand eines Zimmers am Eppendorf Marktplatz in Hamburg zu sehen, 1974, kurz vor meiner Abreise in die USA. Das Bild zeigt in Nahaufnahme ein Heftpflaster auf nackter Haut. Ein entschiedener Abgang in die Unentschiedenheit. Wer das eigene Opfer zu ernst nimmt, scheidet aus. Die drei Panoramen des Films Arrowplane - Wiese, Stadt und Strand - und ein zerschnittener Filmstreifen hängen an der Wand. Im Anschnitt zwei Leuchtkörper mit Stromkabeln. Diese Idylle wurde ergänzt durch das vom BKA veröffentliche Diagramm zum Hergang des Selbstmordes von Andreas Baader in seiner Stammheimer Zelle, das hier um eine Umdrehung seines Halses erweitert wurde. Der am Hinterkopf angesetzte Schuß bahnt sich, nachdem die Kugel von der inneren Schädeldecke, dem Kieferknochen und dem Gehörgang umgelenkt worden ist, durch die Augen der in der Hamburger Gänsemarkt-Passage mit den Füßen unter die Decke genagelten Gänse fort. Allen Verschwörungstheoretikern dieser Erde gewidmet." (Aus: Zeichnung oder Film, 2013).

(1984)

Zeichnung (35) aus DIE BASIS DES MAKE-UP

"Eine weiße und eine graue Garderobengarnitur aus einem Prospekt für Billigmöbel. Eine Gedenkfeier für den 1959 mit dem Flugzeug abgestürzten Buddy Holly auf einem Sofa in Achim, 1964. Es kommt zu einer unverzeihlichen Straftat: Ich zerschlage zu seinem Song Rave On mit einem Fang-den-Ball-Spiel eine der drei nicht ersetzbaren Glastüten der Deckenlampe im Wohnzimmer unserer Nachbarn. Verlegen spielen wir Paare, die nicht funktionieren. Der schwere Schatten eines unbegriffenen Ursprungs legt sich über die Szenerie - oder sind es die Umrisse der Reste eines von Ameisen auf der Suche nach nahrhaftem Klebstoff abgefressenen Flaschenetiketts? In Latenz und transparent über allem: Der junge Mann mit den ausufernden Brustwarzen, der sich so aufreizend das Hemd über den Kopf zieht, aus der damaligen Werbung für ein Solarium. Daß sich Zeiten nachträglich materiell ineinanderschieben lassen, in der Voraussicht aber keine Materie bieten, ist der Nährboden für extrapolierenden Sarkasmus. Die Welt lässt sich tatsächlich als Satz erkennen und begreifen." (Aus: Zeichnung oder Film, 2013).

(1984) 

Zeichnung (36) aus DIE BASIS DES MAKE-UP

"Text under construction"

I am the kitchen. 

(1983) 

Drawing (37) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"The embalmed corpse of Elvis Presley laid out among a trellis of little toes. In his 1960s song Stuck On You, I understood 'I am the wall' rather than 'Hide in the hall'. That’s how we used to learn English back then, by trial and error while listening to the British Forces Network hit parade in northern Germany. I was standing at the railway embankment when Elvis was transported from Bremerhaven to southern Germany on the Flying Roland in 1958. Bill Wyman was just completing his military service in Oldenburg. Baby legs drifting off symbolize the soul of Elvis. A carousel with dead fish hanging from its chains was turning to his songs. Adolescents started making out at the 'Caterpillar'. The most daring of them used to wear bright blue blousons with tigers embroidered on the back. I fell in love with a young English soldier called Storky, who had to carry out a military exercise near our place at the railway embankment and lived in a combat tank. I used to give him pears from our garden and didn’t get anything back from him in return." (From: arsenal, february 19).

(1983) 

Drawing (38) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"The World: a trouser fly. Transparent: the closed fly of a pair of non-iron suit trousers. Love as work: a model of a ship held out in front of a couple conducting sexual intercourse in the missionary position who had neither the time nor the desire to remove their clothes beforehand. The areas of black were leftover pieces of paper on a Polaroid negative of the scenery. RO ID = the unvarnished ID, the arrangement and agreement to be allowed to resemble an animal. Harvey Weinstein should convert to Christianity, then all would be forgiven. His infringements were long since known to each and every person working in film, ante delictum too. The journalistic fuss now suddenly being woven around his despicable role contains all the ingredients for a new McCarthyism. A foretaste of this could already be experienced at the Think:Film-Congress in 2012, when Traité de bave et d’éternité (1951) by Isidore Isou suddenly fell out of favor with Andrea Dworkin aficionados." (From: arsenal, june 18).

(1988)

Drawing (39) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"An outing to the lowland plains of northern Germany, 1975. Beside a cornfield close to Horneburg, we throw a brick wrenched out from a wall into a puddle of water and explain to ourselves why the clouds reflected in it move at different speeds. The far-off clouds are small and slow, the nearer ones large and speedy. And this applies both horizontally and vertically and defines a unique point of view that every photograph contains, whether it wants to or not. Silke Grossmann is wearing a heavy, light brown leather coat. Her shadow has separated itself from her and is thinking about the same things that she is. Back then, we lived next door to the Chilehaus built by wannabe-Nazi general construction inspector Fritz Höger in Hamburg and acknowledged its north German brick expressionism with stoicism. The life of painter Heinrich Vogeler was of greater interest for us, and the analysis of the photograph Assembling for a Demonstration (1928) by Alexander Rodchenko changed our lives forever." (From: arsenal, june 19).

(1975) 

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