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Uncle Gustave

Uncle Gustave

wearing a black ribboned straw hat, gustave,
uncle gustave,
slowly walked down our street
with the help of an ivory colored walking cane,
vulnerable, yet erect like a king who
though victoriously
has fought his last battle and now
has nothing left to prove.

 

he left his sun yellow house with the forest green shutters
at exactly 2.10 pm every day the weather was fair
to an agonizingly slow approach of his bench.
even the birds stopped twittering and held their breath
as he was passing by
for fear to startle him.

 

his bench: dark green under an old chestnut tree,
facing away from the the bay, towards the street.
he carefully sat down, pulling up the legs of his dark suit,
and i climbed onto the bench right next to him,
but threading my legs through the wooden lattice of the back rest
i saw the silver water of the bay, the light caught in the crescents
of the small waves the undercurrent stirred up.
he looked at the street, I looked at the bay,
and we were silent
or talked in low, whispering voices.

 

we both knew he was dying,
right there and then,
and then for some more days to come.
we did not mind,
neither the three nor the ninety-three year old,
i had not been alive for the longest part
of his life,
and he would be dead for the longest
time of mine.

map of a brain on fire

map of a brain on fire

i will write up the contract
entitling you to
a map of my brain, that world on fire,
almost like the contract
we roughly sketched with a yellow pencil stub
(for authenticity)
on the ripped-out fly-leaf
of the iliad in my grandfather’s study.
(sacrilege!)

we were children then
but that is not an excuse

i will write up the contract,
not for nothing
did i go to law school to learn how to
negotiate that what cannot be agreed upon,
how to arrange the terms of a transaction
that is to lead to mutual discontent,
for content is not to be gained through negotiation
and mutual discontent will have to do

we were children no more then
but that is not an excuse

your signature stands in for
your body so it better be water proof ink.
maybe we were smarter still
when we used that yellow pencil stub
to draw a contract
that neither of us meant to honor.
we were pirates after all.

children do grow up
but that is not an excuse

so let us sign it in waterproof ink then,
against our better judgment.
here is your letter of entitlement,
all i ask in return is
the right to keep that old flyleaf,
signed in pencil.

good luck to you now.
i forgot to inform you
that this kind of contract cannot be
specifically enforced,
but then again,
you didn’t care for the flyleaf,
did you.

we are but children.
and that shall be our only excuse.

nothing

nothing

some people say depression is night, but night it is not as it is nothing. some say it is darkness but darkness is smooth and depression cuts with a blunt knife.

some assert depression is descent but it has no direction. some people say” i have it” but really but it can’t be had, it can only have you. some people say they came out of it but you can’t come out of it for it is rooted deep inside you.

some claim that it is an enemy but an enemy it is not, it is you yourself in a cunning disguise and with your own voice reverberating through the hollows of your brain that whoever you are, whatever you do will amount to – nothing.

so. why.even.try.

Sober explanation of my insomnia

Sober explanation of my insomnia

All because of you I haven’t slept in so long
now I dream with open eyes
of black birds crowding
the lesser skies

All because of you I haven’t slept in so long
now I can see the shadows dancing
towards the grey stone
with the artful writing

All because of you I haven’t slept in so long
now I walk with burning eyes
the street you walked
two centuries before …

Inger-Kristina Wegener's avatarArt & Writing

Was ist CIRCUS UTOPIA ART Press?

Der Name CIRCUS UTOPIA für meine Arbeit in der Schnittstelle “Kunst & Recht” entstand aus einer Eingebung. Der Wunsch, dass Menschen unterschiedlichster Weltanschauungen miteinander ins Gespräch kommen können, ohne ihre eigenen Positionen aufzugeben und doch mit einem offenen Ohr für die Ideen anderer, mag utopisch erscheinen. Aber wir schulden es unseren Kindern, es jedenfalls zu versuchen, ihnen die hierfür notwendigen Werkzeuge mit auf den Weg zu geben. Ich habe ehemalige Schülerinnen und Schüler und ihre Eltern gefragt, was Circus Utopia für sie bedeutet.

Joy Ann Lara, Westfield, NJ, artist, mother of two sons who were taking classes in my studio:

Art is a universal language. Experiencing it with Kristina through her art classes for children has enabled my sons to express themselves at a time when words failed to capture the range and intensity of their feelings. Making art built a bridge that spanned isolation and misunderstanding, and provided a sense…

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shadows

IMG_5733

the shadows were moving slowly, swaying like branches in a light breeze or high buildings on a windy day. to detect purpose in these gentle movements required a slight degree of paranoia, and yet there was no apparent natural cause to explain the shift of the shadows away from their corresponding objects and towards the center of the village like water draining from upset glasses.

finally, there were just a bits of shadow left, like drops in a sink adhering to the enamel by their surface tension. these droplets of shadow were sparkling like rainbows, no grayness reflected. the air was still and non-expectant, noon in a depressed small town, and the realization that the world was without shadows had not yet sunk in. in a dirty jeep, parked close to the village center, a woman lit a marlboro.

even those who had dismissed the shadows as inessential, felt disconcerted when the birds ceased to sing. on the morning of the third day, after a dawn without luminosity had given way to dull day light, small insects began their crawling procession towards the centers that had swallowed the shadows.

and someone laughed at the gray man in his wrinkle free woolen suit who solicited signatures on retro-active insurance policies. “one day only”, he implored, “an amazing offer”, but they shooed him away while watching the myriad of tiny, scarlet colored spiders tie a living ribbon between the outskirts of the village and the shadow drain.

and yet, the spiders said, too easily do you accept that we form a living ribbon, and wander into oblivion. one by one. what to your eyes a living ribbon is, to ours is a band of pain, and joy, and hope against all odds.

Das war die NordArt 2012 für mich – ich freue mich auf die NordArt 2013!

NordArt 2012: Quantenphysik trifft Buddhismus

von Inger-Kristina Wegener, rechtsanwalt-kunstrecht.deBild

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.. Rudyard Kipling

Rudyark Kiplings klagendes bonmot – die Kuratoren der NordArt 2012 könnten es als inoffizielle Herausforderung betrachtet haben. Dass es eines Entwurfes bedarf, um die Voraussetzungen für die Realisierung einer Ausstellung zu schaffen, wird wohl auf allgemeine Zustimmung treffen. Dass, mit anderen Worten, eine Ausstellung erst erdacht, gedacht, werden muss, bevor sie Gestalt annehmen kann, mag daher als Gemeinplatz erscheinen. Wie aber sieht es aus, wenn man sich mit dem Gedanken auseinandersetzen wollte, dass sowohl der Entwurf als auch die realisierte Ausstellung nur einen Organisationsprozess von Daten darstellen, die sowohl den individuellen als auch den sozialen Konsens hinsichtlich der Existenz dieser Ausstellung vorwegnehmen und schließlich implementieren? Und dass sich die materielle Existenz dieser Ausstellung in eben dieser Datenorganisation auch schon erschöpfe? An derart komplexen Ideen konnte sich der Besucher der NordArt 2012 in dieser Saison messen und vergnügen.

Wird die Bereitschaft des messenden Bewusstseins zur Anerkennung eines bestimmten Ist-Zustandes des Objektes aufgekündigt, entfällt die illusionäre Realität der Materie, und der massive, schwarze Torbogen aus norwegischem Granit des deutschen Künstlers Dorsten Diekmann etwa wird zum Torweg nicht nur im symbolischen, metaphorischen Sinne, sondern im Wortsinne zur Aufforderung, den Durchgang durch das magmatische Tiefengestein in eine alternative Realität, eine Spiegelwelt, zu wagen.

Nicht nur über den Umweg nach Kassel zur dOKUMENTA (13) in das quantenphysikalische Laboratorium des österreichischen Quantenphysikers Prof. Dr. Anton Zeilinger im Fridericianum ließ sich bei dem Gang über die NordArt 2012 nachvollziehen, dass fast alles, was unsere alltägliche Auffassung uns über den Zustand unserer Umwelt kommunizieren will, schlichtweg fehlerhaft ist, allem voran unsere Vorstellung über die Eigenschaften der Materie. Die Videoinstallationen des Kanadiers Dan Hudsons verwiesen in ihrer Tonspur auf Werner Heisenberg und andere Pioniere der Quantenphysik (Materie ist organisierte Leere um einen Kern von Wahrscheinlichkeiten von Anwesenheit), die Arbeiten des deutschen Jo Kley (Dragon Line, Soll und Haben) auf mythologische Vorstellungen von Bruchstellen und Übergängen zwischen dieser Welt und anderen Räumen (das Nichts hat Eigenschaften). Um den Bogen abzurunden, buchstabierten 33 Künstler aus China in der Sonderausstellung „Formen des Formlosen“ in prozessorientierten Arbeiten nach, dass der Buddhismus mit diesen Konzepten (das Messinstrument entscheidet über die Position des Photons = Quantenphysik, erst im messenden Bewusstsein manifestiert sich die Welt = Buddhismus) seit jeher vertraut ist. Wer im Bereich „einfacher Mathematik“ Einsteins Kosmologie-Prinzip nachvollziehen wollte (bei einer endlichen Anzahl von Partikeln und einer mathematisch jedenfalls an Unendlichkeit heranreichenden Ausdehnung des Universums muss sich jegliche physische Realität früher oder später wiederholen – jene des Besuchers eingeschlossen, das berühmte Imelda-Beispiel), konnte dies in den von der Gleichförmigkeit des Zufalls geprägten Rotationsbildern des chinesischen Künstlers Meng Luding ebenso nachvollziehen wie an der verschlungenen Stahlsphäre des US-Kanadiers Bernard Hosey, dessen massive Arbeit „CrissCross“ aus einem einzigen U-Träger gebogen war und auf die ewige Wiederkehr jeglichen Prozesses verwies. Ost did meet West indeed, Mr. Kipling. Gemeinsam machen sie sich auf den Weg vom überholten Newtonschen Weltbild zu einem quantenphysikalisch geprägten Verständnis des Universums und den atemberaubenden Einsichten, die mit diesem Wechsel einhergehen. KünstlerInnen und Kuratoren der NordArt überraschten in dieser Saison mit dem Angebot , dieses veränderte Weltbild anschaulich nachzuvollziehen und – zumindest für Augenblicke – zu begreifen.

the mirror land

the mirror land

there was a gate and there was none. to step forward required no courage just a lion’s heart. beyond it was the mirror land. hares parading on their hind legs, walking canes in their pretentious front paws as was to be expected. what else? i could not see enough from where i stood. i stepped through.

once through, the scene changed just as i had suspected it might do (but had hoped against my better judgment it would not). no green bucolic scenes, no childhood dreams. there was another gate and not a gate, a foot of grey no-mans land between realities, not more. i stepped through the second gate, as if one step mandated two, oh, what a fool i was!

beyond the gate there was bright blindness, no object, no surface, no orientation, no gravity – not dream, not reality, a blindness that did not originate in the eye’s inability to see what was there, there was nothing. there was no gate, there was no path, but in the brightness, invisible, the pretentious hare, checked his silver time piece smugly, and i did not know how i knew he did.

then i heard it fall, the silver time piece, fall with a dampened thud that sent shivers down my spine. i felt the rabbit searching for it like a blind man, paws frightfully extended, and suddenly i understood why i could see the hare with unseeing eyes. when i had stepped through the second gate i had turned inside out, and the rabbit was trapped within.

Song of the Aelvor

Song of the Aelvor

i am luminous in my loneliness
there is no one else
to tell morning from evening
water from sky
light from shadow
no one to divide
idea and the symbol
representing it
the it from the i
and the i from the you
trying to find a bridge
back from nonexistence
reaching for stars
that burn in a distant sky
a sky that is a cold tent to dreams
conceived around hearth fires
we realize that
we cannot loose what is ours
and we cannot gain what is not.

Palaverous Lament

Palaverous Lament

The empty skies are where we want to go now
released of our desire
to conceive the next beautiful thing

We prefer the leaden days and starless nights,
industrial landscapes, gaping emptiness,
toxic waste and boredom of no-man’s land
(and no woman decorating a corner with market flowers)

You would not understand
if you thought we wanted to leave for silver shores
or even suburban homes, given the opportunity,
we prefer the empty skies and their agents

to the messenger of a glory
unsung