Connecting to people tattooed by Santiago Sierra, 2005
250 cm line tattooed on 6 paid people, Santiago Sierra 1999
Pushing and Pulling by Francis Alys, 1992-2002
Pushing and Pulling by Francis Alys, 1992-2002
Kärntnerstraße in Vienna, Anna Witt, 2006
Stephansdom in Vienna, Anna Witt, 2006
Me and my barrow, 2005What is the value of a body in Mexico City, a city with 20. mio. inhabitants? What is the value of my body in such a place? I am suppposed to realize a work there, I have the time of ten days and I don´t know that city. In Berlin I have seen an exhibition titeled “Mecixo City: an exhibition about rates and values of bodies“. It was brought to Europe and the USA to represent. Out of the exhibition catalougue:“I don´t know if nationalism is to defend as a value of morality or any other value against globalism. But we know that nationalism provides us with a wrong state of union in time and space. I am surprised that we pretent we can´t see that nationalism is a construct of the state, internationalised as a framework and not giving any other context than restraint.“ The exhibition stuck in my mind, it was my association with the city before I knew it. Francis Alys took pictures of bargainers on their daily way to work, pushing and pulling their goods. Their input of body work is in a direct relation to the economic value of their goods. I was fascinated to watch the bargainers carrying huge amounts of goods on small barrows. These barrows are called „Diablito“, which means „small devil“. I convinced a marketeer to sell me his diablito. When I had the barrow in my hands I felt save and integrated in the city, but I also drew more attention than before. The bargainers couldn´t understand what I, a caucasian and an obvious tourist, could want with such an object. With the diablito and the rest of my luggage I went to the airport. The taxi driver fixed the barrow slackly on the top of his car so that when he drove on the highway it draggled. At the airport in Mexico I had no problems checking in. What ist the quality of such an object, replaced to another application of value? What are the consequences when I tear a work out of it´s original context? For the installation I want to use an ordinary white metal grating, as the bargainers use to built their marked stands. But I realized that it is not so easy to find such a grating here. Is this material out of fashion here? Is the quality too low? Or doesn´t it correspond to our aesthetic pretentions? Santiago Sierra is like Francis Alys „Mexican by choice“. Both have their origins in Europe, what Sierra calls “the artificialy life supported first world bubble“ Santiango Sierra paid prostitutes to tattoo a line on their backs for the amount of a dosis of heroin. This line I continued on my back. I paid 400 pesos. If I would trace these women and stand in a line with them, we would produce one line, one picture. Do our bodies have the same rate? The fresh cut on my back battered me more than I expected, somehow I felt attacked. Well, it was an attempt to find my own limits. The line remains. At the same day I got a gun pointed to my head and I experienced my survival instinct. I don´t run away, I just close my eyes and don`t react.
installation LothringerHalle13, 2006