260

Drawing (260) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"Engedi, February 24th, 1999. In the evening sun, four Israeli soldiers appear out of a wadi next to the Dead Sea, who we take with us to the Dead Sea Laboratories at Mineral, which is currently 400 meters below sea level. Their body odor after three days of extreme hiking in full army equipment through the Judean Wilderness fills the car like a heavy perfume. Their cell phones start working again, so they return their mothers’ calls. In the evening, in a concrete hut on the mountain, I sketch the telegraph poles in the valley by the now silvery grey and blue sea, connect the sketches of two pillars of salt with the torso of a charred jet pilot, add a Roman floor mosaic with a wave pattern and sketch a photo of the preparations for the burning of a mountain of corpses in Auschwitz. It shows a man in boots teetering around on the bodies of those gassed. In 1954, I still thought all children were about to be gassed in the showers of our school gymnasium. ENGELER means 'to freeze to death'." (From: arsenal, march 15).

(1999)

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