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| CONVERSATIONS WITH THE HEART IN BERLIN Margarita Zieda An interview with Monika Pormale | |
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The Spielzeiteuropa ("European Season") Theatre Festival is quite a new element in the cultural life of Berlin - this is only its third year. The festival is a child of a new age, a changed reality: it is a child of the unification of Europe. And that's the idea behind the festival: to concentrate the best forces in European theatre, so that we can learn what they're thinking and what they're talking about in their work at the present day. What preoccupies them? What does Swiss director Christoph Marthaler wish to discuss, that investigator of marginal zones, with his hand on the halted pulse of life? What's a good conversation topic for the life-loving Wuppertal Dance Theatre and Pina Bausch? What are those ice-cold and immensely beautiful artists Isabelle Huppert and Robert Wilson concerned with in their most recent work? However, Spielzeiteuropa is also open to quite young artists and their work. And so, this year an artist from Latvia, Monika Pormale, was invited to put together the exhibition and create the face of the festival as such. Last year's study of light has been succeeded at this year's Spielzeiteuropa by an interest in the theatre as an architectonic structure. Monika Pormale's photo installation inhabits the "Free People's Stage", designed by German architect Fritz Bornemann in the 1960s, which has now been renamed the "Berlin Festival House" and provides a venue for various projects. Fritz Bornemann is one of Germany's most important architects of the 1950s and 60s, designer of many important buildings in West Berlin: the German Opera, the American Library and the buildings of the Free University of Berlin. In working on her installation, Monika Pormale, too, was looking in the direction of West Berlin. Of a city that is no more.
Margarita Zieda: The photographs you created for Spielzeiteuropa continue the idea of people listening to the language of the heart, begun in "The Ice. A collective reading of the book with the help of imagination in Gladbach and Riga" - they show people surrounded by unusual tenderness, embracing in public places. Does the trail from the Berlin Festival House also lead back to Vladimir Sorokin's novel "The Ice", or does this earlier context no longer have any meaning in the work you're showing in Berlin? Monika Pormale: The original impulse really does come from the novel, which describes an unusual sect of blonde people seeking others like them in order to speak the language of the heart. To speak in a way that's different from that which is accustomed. At the Ruhr Triennial, where we had an incredible opportunity to put on a performance in an immense space, we wished to combine a performance and an exhibition. And then the idea emerged that we should really do it: see what it's like to speak the language of the heart. The first attempt was in Riga. I'd sought out locations that seemed interesting. Although, once again, the original impulses came from the book. Sorokin writes: "The greatest numbers of brothers and sisters were found..." - and then he lists the places: libraries, cinemas, and so on. Places with lots of people. As regards Riga, there weren't all that many possibilities. At the Freedom Monument or in a Rimi supermarket. In St Gertrude's Church, or at a swimming pool. It was different to the way it was done here in Berlin, since in Riga there were actors taking part. They knew what it was about. Although in Riga, too, there were combinations of actors and real people at the particular location. Some declined, others agreed. M.Z.: What did you tell people who didn't know anything about this kind of speaking the language of the heart? About the novel? M.P.: The first location, I think, was a library. I had the idea of going ahead with it, but after the first 15 seconds, we already came to understand that people are simply bewildered, that it brings about all sorts of completely unnecessary mental associations. The terms in themselves: a sect, men embracing men, single-sex couples. A great deal of superfluous information. And then I simply asked people to find themselves a partner, and to present a very honest moment between themselves and their partner for 15-20 seconds. To really do this from the heart. How else can I explain it? And people really did understand what they should do. It's difficult to abstract yourself from all that's happening around you, since there's such a lot going on, to freeze and try to hear your own heart and that of the other person. I can say this, since I've tried it myself: you no longer hear that there's a car beeping and is about to drive over you. You really end up in a kind of vacuum. And that's what Sorokin was writing about, what he was thinking about. Of course, he was thinking about a whole lot more besides, but in carrying it out as a physical act, we were very true to the way it's written. M.Z.: In Sorokin's book, however, this honest language of the heart between people is very powerfully interpreted, and in quite grim contexts. In Riga and at the Ruhr Triennial, your photographs had a very clear connection with the performance. In Berlin, this is seemingly discontinued: the exhibition is no longer part of the performance, and most of the people have, after all, not even heard of the previous work. How did you develop this idea in Berlin? What did you consider when working with the theme under these changed conditions? M.P.: I was interested in working with people who aren't actors or theatre people. We put out an ad: we're looking for people, regardless of age, sex or any other restrictions, in order to be photographed at particular places in the frame of a project by one particular artist. But with no explanation. I've come to understand that I like working with very simple, universally familiar things. And not to make up something, but to reflect something very simple. I'm striving for a level where nothing needs to be explained, where everything's visible. So that there's no need for texts explaining what I'm to feel or comprehend in this work of art. So that it's immediately clear to people. At the theatre in Riga, I had a conversation with painter Miervaldis Polis: we talked about an attempt at reflecting without adding anything personal. He said that the greatest art is to copy reality one for one. And at that moment I thought: yes, that's me. M.Z.: But in what sense? After all, you're staging the reality. M.P.: I'm trying to reflect reality. When they see only one photograph, most people think it's an accidentally recorded moment. And to me that's a great compliment. Although, if you see several of the photographs, then, of course, it becomes clear. But there's that millisecond when you believe that someone's simply noticed the situation and photographed it. Another, approach, quite the opposite, is to permit your imagination to run completely wild. Like the "Gob Squad", who go through the city in bunny masks, where there are no points of reference. And between one and the other, there's a kind of imitation of life, sometimes successful, sometimes less so. I try to be a medium, photographing, putting on or presenting, but without actually being present. In copying reality, I'm also much truer to myself, since in the case of imitation I have to reckon with various wishes and tastes. A good copy needs no comment. And this coincides with my interest in talking to people in a visual language that they can pick up and understand. I was talking to an artist from Berlin, and one evening he really gave me an earful. We were talking about explaining works of art, and he said that if you're an artist, then you always have to explain what you wish to say. You have to have some very powerful theory or concept. He presented it in commercial terms: you have to sell yourself, people have to know what you're thinking so that they can compare you with other artists. M.Z.: Before travelling to Berlin to create this work, you took an active interest in the mythology of the old West Berlin. Essentially, this is a Berlin that has partly already disappeared from present-day Berlin, and is actively continuing to erase itself. What did you find so interesting about a place that does not really exist any more? M.P.: Last winter and spring, when I was in Berlin, in talking to people, and even in the headlines of newspapers I saw at the airports, there were conspicuously frequent signals about that dying part of the city - West Berlin. This is precisely the way it was put in one of the papers: "Dying area". And this caught my attention. Earlier, I'd always for the most part happened to be in the eastern part of the city. I knew very little about this part of Berlin, and for me it was like going on an expedition. This is exactly what I did in spring. And I came to see how different these two parts of the city still are. I even prefer the West Berlin part - these are the good old days. There's a somewhat conserved feel. In East Berlin, for the fifth or seventh year in a row, I'm always seeing new buildings and construction work. That side is becoming very prestigious, and in architectural terms it's absolutely cold and functional, while here we have something altogether different. There are many elderly people. This part of the city is very quiet and peaceful. A place that somehow seems not to exist. M. Z.: And what were you seeking in this non-existent place? The previously-existing arteries? Or something else? M.P.: Before this visit to Berlin, I'd done a great deal of thinking in Riga, and collected together various books on the architecture of Berlin. I decided that I'd imagine these places. From books. I also sent a lot of people messages, asking them to create a kind of "top five" of the places that in their view represented such arteries in the western part. And there was a diversity of opinion. There was no common denominator. And then I decided to make a trip there and try to walk a kind of tourist route in the course of one day. And that's what I did. It was very early in the morning, and the first place I visited was the KDW (Kaufhaus des Westens - the largest shopping centre in continental Europe - M.Z.). I had a thorough look at it. Gundars Āboliņš had spent about half a hour in Riga telling me about the sixth floor of the KDW - the gastronomy floor. I was quite worried that I wouldn't be allowed to take pictures there, but it turned out that everyone had cameras and that they were photographing those mountains of caviar. I needed a map, and that I obtained in the famous Europa Center, where tourists can find out all they need. And then I travelled to Teufelsberg. I'd asked Berliners what they do on weekends. We can reach the sea in the space of an hour, but where do they go? How do they get close to nature? And they said: yes, we have the Teufelsberg, the highest point in Berlin, from where you can see the whole city. It's a hill. That's very nice, I thought. But then they added: you know how that hill came about? After the Second World War, the debris of the ruined houses and everything else that was left over, was brought here. It's a man-made hill. And now Germans travel there with their families to relax and fly kites. And then, quite nearby, visible from the hill, is the second place mentioned in all the "top fives": the ICC (International Congress Centrum Berlin - one of the world's largest con-gress halls - M.Z.). This building is familiar to every Berliner, since it's right next to the highway leading out of the city. Unforgettable architecture, a very impressive building, the demolition of which is now under discussion. It was built using asbestos and all kinds of materials harmful to human health. It's a place that won't exist any more. Having travelled around these places, I returned to my starting point: Wittenberg Platz. And that's how the locations emerged. These are all places that will probably not exist some years from now. Those good, old times. And KDW shows this very well, too. It's the only place where people wanted to see the picture afterwards. And they were horrified at how old-fashioned it was, and how bad they look in that location! Couldn't I have photographed them in some place where there's advertising? We'll have a Christmas tree there soon! They try to keep up with all that's modern. The photograph shows an elderly person. And then they said: we're going to refurbish that location, and it won't be like that any more. And I thought: how wonderful - once again I've hit on something that will be no more. M.Z.: Over these vanishing places you've placed the motto: Alles wird gut - "Everything's going to be alright". Very diverse works are brought together under this slogan, from Christoph Marthaler's "Protection from the future", an unpleasantly merciless analysis of the present day, to the art of Pina Bausch, filled with a great love for people. What's your contribution to this "Everything's going to be alright"? M.P.: This alles wird gut is naïve, it says nothing, but it's soothing nevertheless. If it's repeated continually like a kind of mantra, then it comes true. We use it so frequently among ourselves, and it does come true. M.Z.: It seems interesting that you're offering consolation to the most affluent and socially most powerful part of Berlin. The strongest part. If you look at the whole spectrum of Berlin, then this stratum has the least problems. And at the same time it's very difficult to reach the language of the heart precisely with these people. Someone from Eastern Europe telling a West Berliner that everything's going to be alright - that's quite unexpected. At least for a West Berliner. M.P.: Here at the theatre, a woman told me about an acquaintance of hers living nearby in Wilmersdorf. At home, they have Persian carpets and chandeliers five centuries old: it's the kind of flat where you could take people on an excursion. But they're really having financial problems just now, in the past few years. They have everything, but, for example, that couple haven't been speaking to each other for some 30 years now. Saying something like that to the other half of Berlin seems somehow self-explanatory: it's a problem area. But in this old, western part, it really is somehow different. M.Z.: The Berliner Festspiele, where your exhibition is being held, is also one of the old West Berlin theatres. M.P.: The first photograph came about very simply: I wanted to show the house, and we photographed people outside, by the façade of Berliner Festspiele. And then I heard the first comments - oh, that's the sleepy audience of Berliner Festspiele. When I first arrived here, the building itself addressed me very forcefully. It has a kind of unbelievable spatial quality and breadth. Places always tend to be filled with all sorts of things. Such is the architecture of Fritz Bornemann: the spatiality literally stunned me - even more than the building we were offered in the Ruhr Triennial. I became a complete fan of Bornemann. I wanted to continue the idea of embracing, and to involve the theatre-goers, but to do it indoors, and in such a way as to change the space - to continue it, to give a deeper perspective. In this photograph, the window and the wall continue. This was the idea: to imbue the space with additional perspective. The people who come to the theatre and see these photo-graphs in the window have to have the feeling that it's all here, surrounding them. Every location is familiar, but, when we put them together, we obtain a non-existent panorama of the city. And then I zoom in on the interiors, and there has to be the feeling that it's all happening just here and now. Looking from outside at the photos displayed in the immense windows, you see people in short-sleeved shirts and the sun - things that have existed at some time. In the interiors, there has to be the feeling that it's happening now. And that you can't tell where the limits of the space are. Of course, that's only for the first millisecond. People are sufficiently educated and knowledgeable in visual terms nowadays, but at that first moment, there has to be the feeling that those 100 people are here, and that some of those standing further away have for some reason embraced. M.Z.: Have you ever had to explain to Berliners about the language of the heart? M.P.: There were people interested in learning more. I always recommended that they read Sorokin's Das Eis. Just imagine: they might get scared, when they come to understand what an important ritual they've unwittingly taken part in. M.Z.: Does the outer form we see in Berlin have an inner connection with Sorokin's ritual? M.P.: It's a kind of general idea. M.Z.: What's your own contribution to it? M.P.: It's quite different doing it with the members of your family Ė with your mother or with some other person close to you. For five minutes before that process, people were always slightly tense. Since each person has their own personal space, with a radius of a metre or two. It's not normal to stand so close to a stranger. And you could feel that people were preparing for it. But when it actually happened... I was quite merciless. I always said: stop. It's always important to close your eyes, so that you don't see what's going on around you. Not to speak, not to smile, to concentrate entirely on yourself and on that other person. And then, at one location, I didn't say "stop", and it lasted quite a long time. About a minute. It sounds like a very short time, but in that situation, it's a lot. Time somehow disappears. It's very strange. I thought there must be a moment when the principle of repulsion takes over. If you're simply going through the motions, then you just can't stand it any longer. But if you do it very sincerely, then I think it can last for hours. You enter a different situation, a different world, a different mood, and that's what Sorokin was writing about: people embraced, and days passed in this way. There's a special kind of chemical reaction. And there was this situation, where they actually stood, and a minute or more passed without a single movement. It was a very difficult situation in terms of lighting. It was important not to move, so as not to blur the image, and afterwards I looked at the film: it was all in focus, down to the millimetre. I've photographed a kind of paranormal phenomenon. Those people really were speaking the language of the heart. M.Z.: Usually, people sign up for various things inspired by the mass media, things that require looks or brains, but not the heart. Was it a problem for people to be truthful at some deeper level? M.P. : Of course, there was that risk. I didn't know how it would turn out. I was really scared. I was, so to speak, working with real, live people. Situations can be thought out and put together, but this meant working with living people. The most unpredictable things could have happened. For example, there was one situation like this. A couple had come, and after they'd embraced, you could see that they were a couple. I wouldn't say it was sexual, but it was very intimate. And I split them up. That was one of the rare occasions where I said I wanted to change the partners. But they wouldn't agree. I talked to them, and in the end they said: OK, we'll give it a try. But later they rang me and said they didn't agree, that they had to be together. I never had the situation where a man asks me why he should do it with this beautiful boy? Yes, perhaps because it's Berlin. I was very surprised at how open people are here. When I explained at the festival what I was thinking of trying out in Berlin, they said it was impossible. That it was impossible to ask people in Berlin to do that. And the reality turned out quite different. Of course, I've had the kind of conversation that begins with someone asking me whether I've heard about that artist who photographs hundreds of naked people in Berlin, New York and London? Yes, of course, I answer. But there's such an immense difference. Of course, photographing naked people in the street is so cool. It's hard to do. But, on the other hand, it's so much simpler. I even think it's perhaps easier to undress than it is to embrace someone you don't know. | |
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