dinsdag 2 augustus 2016

fly-by at Coblenz, PAErsche and Bbeyonder...

I was originally intending to visit the PAErsche (unterwegs) stroll at Cologne on the 26th of July but couldn’t make it... so I decided to try again during their presence at Coblenz on the 30th... (as part of Explorativ °4) and combine my visit with a short homage to recently departed performance mainstay Ben Patterson...

For it is he, along with Robert Filliou who laid the basis for this kind of public performance, between the ‘unnoticed’ and the non-art, the (re)inte(r)gration of life & art and all that – with their Galerie Légitime in Paris ’62 -  so Koblenz I thought is a good venue, en route between Bonn, where Filliou unfroze his deep-frozen ‘Galerie Légitime’ in 1972 and Wiesbaden, where Ben Patterson lived & died recently. I thought of his work called “Das Rheingold” of which he gave me a copy of the booklet, and his classic ‘paper piece’ to which he told a nice story of a version he did in New Delhi with (part of) 900 rolls of toilet paper... (captured on video during rooftop conversation at MuHKA Antwerp 2012).

I had some affairs to arrange in Bonn, and decided to drive along the river on the eastern bank, seeing as how the rendez-vous of the PAErsche group with guests Bbeyond (Belfast) was on the Festung Ehrenbreitstein across the river from the town... but as luck would have it, we (Bukta-partner LL and myself) got stuck in a major traffic marmalade just before reaching Coblenz... throwing our schedule in disarray... we were too late & so we got to the cable-car, and headed down across the river hoping to catch up with them somewhere...


I had with me a fishing rod and a roll of toilet paper blazoned with the fleur de lis – reference to those Parisian origins of mobile (legitime) anywhere art exhibition – and Delhi paper Piece... once on the other bank began to rove around to see if we could spot the performance group... but we began by entering one of the street running away from the river, which was perhaps not such a good idea, most revelers being on the promenade, of course... but I was thinking of buying a bucket or pail, to dig some sand from the Rhine if I could – though not much opportunity, mostly being walled quayside around the town.

Wandered past Cesar’s sore thumb and saw that most of the lawn behind Willem1 was already taken so decided to get geared up for the quest with a coffee at the ‘Königsbacher Biergarten am Deutschen Eck’ and continued on towards town. I had my fishing-rod with me, and had added a defunct CD as a base-plate for the roll of toilet paper – which I had not yet added, since it would unfurl before I got it to the river – but people looked at it quizzically – it had a ritualistic allure, performance pilgrims staff or such... there were lot’s of people around, the café-terraces were loaded, shoppers an daytrippers and what not everywhere... saw a man with three empty crates of “Carmen” walk slowly and sit down for a while, wondering if perhaps this might be part of the performance program... guess not. 




Had a short run-in with the towns rascal (Schlingel) spouting water at irregular intervals... interesting venue to while a while... and get soaked...

Drifting out of the quaint historical centre into the more hardcore mega-shopping district we veered off into a street under renovation, with curious stores awaiting no custom due to the closed road... state of limbo... behind the theatre, across the way a former Schloss now sort of forlorn... we took a short cut through a official sort of car park, Landesgericht it seems, and reached the river at the end of the promenade...














Okay, so which way? Towards the bridge one couldn’t access the water either, so we decided to go towards the cable-car, passing boat-trip salesmen doing their utmost to catch tourist types like ourselves, a nun on a bicycle whizzed by on an errand for God, Imbiss Stuben excreted sausage ventilation, and trinkets were coming thick and fast...
 


Ah- that’s what I need: a kiosk was selling those fold out pictorial maps of the Rhine – just like the one Ben Patterson used for his ‘Rheingold’ action... so, now we were in gear, I got one in English and attached my roll of fleur-de-lis toilet paper....

 and lo and behold, no two steps further we came across some people that could be doing nothing short of performance... feathers and red thread lured the viewer-participant into a sort of forest-scene tableau vivant, (sur l’herbe et entre arbres) relatively static, slight, moving at times reminiscent of Butoh but not quite, then a flurry here, or there, some self contained some interactive, though only a few jutted out into the promenade between the flanneurs – and some of the regulars would venture into the scenery between the trees, but on the whole it was a manége of performers and things they were using. Stringing up fellow performers for letting too many beans glide through the fingers into a galvanized dish, of flattening crumpled lengths of ‘Deutsche Markenbutter’ back into neat rolls of useable foil (ordnung muss sein) while some dragging rocks, others holding steady sticks on trees with feet or legs extended... while in the back featherman featheredtree meticulously, each branch becoming a wing of sorts...











I attempted to catch a feather from the feathercatcher but she was too quick for me, so I stole some from a couple of kids who had been luckier than me... feathers wafting among the tourist along the promenade... and headed on towards the promontory before my toilet paper unfurled entirely before I could reach the Rhine/Mosel - and let it wave and waft across the river... alas the manipulation along the way got it all tangled and already some of the pages had become semi-detached... as well as the breeze not being as stiff as it might have been – so much for wafting over the river... Oh well,























...it was a fine outing-day, and could easily have accommodated a bucket & spade session - and in effect the sun was getting golden when we headed back, shimmering on the Mosel more than the Rhine from our point of view so Moselgold instead... and well, the toilet paper wafting was but a small homage – could it be construed as intervention and as part of the performance piece billed? Was it removed enough from regular life and integrated enough to merit mention? Very nice but is it art, non-art, or just fancyfair? The Gaukelfest on the fortress rock is billed as artistic cultural fare, so why not... saw one guy with a large flying plastic sheet, like I had done many times as part of a performative intervention, so away we go, it’s all art, also the schnitzel that landed on the street before it could reach it’s consumer, or the kid’s ice-cream that got liked half off by the dog.














I’ll leave that to the specialist – as for myself, I was glad to see PAErsche & friends in action finally, and will certainly try again one of the next times this group is close ( seems they do quite a bit at Liege & Brussels which is also Bukta-country of sorts) ... I’m quite sure that Ben P. would have enjoyed it, and that’s what counts – in fact, I see it as the other end of that fragment of the Antwerp Paper Piece that ended up in the Bosporus* back in 2012... and could be construed as all part of the museum of the subconscious surfacing through a man-hole cover at Wiesbaden.

*( here the link to the bosporus paper and delhi paper conversation )






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