The transformation of the museum
How did Beuys do it? They say he did his thinking with his knee? Beside that he used a lot of material, hundreds of sledges, mountains of clay, forests of oak trees, railway tracks, and yet all this material was never matter but always metaphor. That, linguistic or figurative expression, in which a word or a material is transferred from its actual context of meaning to another, without a direct comparison clarifying the relationship between the signifier and the signified.
In the last exhibition, John Roloff transformed the museum into a place where there was nothing more to see than the outside view of the real world. It was as if the museum had been stripped of its objects of meaning. Just like all museums in the western world where were closed during the pandemic.
Now, overnight, the museum is transformed into a railway station for Ester Fritz's exhibition. Not into a crowded terminal, a dead-end station, but into a peaceful station of a fictitious place. The trains arrive here on one side and leave in the other direction. There are only two trains, the 'Blitz' going north and the 'Erdbeere‘ ( Strawberry) train going south. They run regularly, once an hour, otherwise the station is silent. For about 56 minutes oft he hour, because each train takes only 2 minutes to arrive and depart. What a wonderful silence there is in those 56 minutes.
On the walls of the platforms are posters of exhibitions by Ester Fritz There are white and black felt benches that are as comfortable as meditation cushions. You can listen to the birds chirping, feel the light breeze on your skin and calmly think about what you will do first at the end of the journey. It is not the train we came to see but the silence.
There is a joyful vibration in the 56 minutes of silence.
I wonder when this station was built or who opened it. Usually there is a little brass sign. Ah, there is the little brass plate: built by bio-engineer Rubert Sheldrake, opened by Nobel laureate Hans Peter Dürr.
"Matter is not made out of matter, but energy."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-4PFo487m0
The artist writes:
“I like your idea very much! Now we need courage and love to face the new, uncertain future well and to be able to feel it every moment! However, I would rather make an exhibition for people. I am slowly feeling my "warmth of heart" again, it is always there, but I just don't always have access to it, then it is helpful to open up access again with the help of meditation. By "warmth of heart" I mean this "energy, power" that is no different from the warmth of heart of another person, that is not bound to any condition. It is also not a feeling, you know it, it is what surrounds you when you "love", you are then in "love", it is not directed towards a goal and when I perceive it very easily, then it is worthwhile for me to live.“