Nicholas Warburg "Vermissage" 25.04.2020

Nicholas Warbur 25 04 — 09 05 2 „Vermissage“ Nicholas Warburgs Serie von Zeichnungen trägt den Titel Notizen aus der Edelquarantäne. Der Titel bezieht sich auf den Entstehungsort der Arbeiten. Warburgs Tante, die nicht in Deutschland lebt, musste wegen Corona kurzfristig ihren Flug nach Frankfurt stornieren. Ihre Buchung im Frankfurter Hof änderte sie auf den Namen ihres Neffen. Dieser verbrachte dort zwei Tage, als er einen Anruf von einer Freundin bekam, mit der er kurz vorher zusammen gewesen war und die positiv auf Corona getestet wurde. Nicholas Warburg ließ sich ebenfalls testen – mit dem gleichen Ergebnis. Da er gegenüber den Mitarbeitern des Frankfurter Hofs angab, er habe keine andere Unterkunft in der Stadt, blieb er insgesamt zehn Tage dort, ohne etwas zu bezahlen. In einer Suite mit Room Service. Alles kontaktlos natürlich.

Er las, surfte im Internet, schaute Nachrichten und aus dem Fenster. Seine Impressionen und Emotionen setzte er in Zeichnungen mit Fineliner und Acrylfarbe auf Hotelpapier um, was ihm bald zu allen Mahlzeiten mit vor die Tür gelegt wurde.

Von den knapp hundert Zeichnungen, die entstanden, sind zwanzig in der Ausstellung zu sehen.

I have written a rather short text with a rather strong or maybe just headstrong thesis which you will come accross at the end of my statement. I am speeking about a small piece of prose of Kafka‘s, just a single sentence. I would like to start out reading the text in german and english to you.

The first thing one could realise reading those two texts is the horrible translation, starting with the title: to my mind the use of the form TO BE instead of TO BECOME for the german „werden“ is highly insensitive. And also obstructive for my interpretation.

To translate the german„schief“, meaning oblique or skew, with„leaning against“ does not only hide the reference to the beginning of Kafka‘s favorite short story Michael Kohlhaas by Kleist, but mainly it has a very different connotation. But it gets downright criminal that the narrator does shed his spurs„for there NEEDED no spurs, threw away the reins, for there NEEDED no reins“, when in the original there ARE no spurs, there ARE no reins!

If one shed spurs and threw away reins, there need to be spurs and reins in the first place. Kafka uses a technique of nonsense literature, leading to a cryptic scenario, that is in no way apparent in the translation. But enough with the critique at this point.

So what can we read and see, reading Wunsch, Indianer zu werden?: The vision of the notion of a native american galloping through a heathland. The narrator is diffuse––not an I but a one.

Grammaticaly we are starting with a subjunctive („if one were“) moving on to the past tense („kept on quivering“). The text plays with the possibilities of imagination. At first it takes its own fantasy for real when in the next moment spurs and reins have to be shed, because they have never been there. Maybe because they are unlikely (native americans didn‘t ride horses using spurs and reins). In the end even the neck and head of the horse can‘t be seen anymore.

Maybe because it‘s streched in gallop, more likely because it has never been there in the first place as well.

This could remind us of Gottfried August Bürgers ballad Lenore (1774) where not the body of the horse but the horseman himself falls appart. One could also think of Kleists Fabel ohne Moral (1808):„Wenn ich dich nur hätte, sagte der Mensch zu einem Pferde...“ If I only possesed you, the man said to the horse... „In the movement we can find the highhest intensity of Kafka‘s images of absence and disappearance“,

Joseph Vogl says. In the line of the dashing ride all images are left behind, hardly touching the ground, yet fused with the horse. There is only the ride and the movement, a flying arrow, no spurs, no reins, no body, no horse.

Peter André Alt argues that the text obeys to the law of movement and breaks loose from the objective world. The fiction becomes dynamics, the purpose of the text becomes obvious: making movement visible in language. Hans Thies Lehmann goes even further. In his opinion Kafka‘s writing obeys to the law of the removal of reference. An item, object or topic is not to be revealed but to be dissassembled. Therefore the text focusses on the linguisstic movement, that accomplishes the removal of the reference. The only thing that‘s left from the native american is the movement of the horseriding, his being oblique or skew (schief) and the quivering.

So, what kind of movement are we dealing with here? An instant alertness, leading to a being skew in the air, an ongoing jerkily quivering over a ground that is quivering itself, a tension of muscles, a tension that is urging to unload––and than suddenly: a break, a change in the aggregate state, a sudden relief, a loss of spurs and reins (the german word zügellos comes to mind); the spurs and reins, utensils of control on the one hand, possible utensils of desire (sex toys) on the other. Were they ever there in the first place one could ask, now feeling reliefed.

Could that be the movement of an orgasm? Maybe not an epic one with fireworks but a rather fast and flat one? Maybe a premature one? But never the less an orgasm, a freudian relief of tension. Joseph Vogl says that the paradox becomes the moment of the expression of an experience that is bound to the wish to fail. The identity remains abstract, spaces are ruled by absence, the desire is permanent. And Vogl continues:„Kafka‘s literature accomplishes it‘s strongest approximation to death“ (you probarbly heard the french expression small death for orgasm)„right there, where it chases a wish for the end of wishing.“ The Wish to BE a Red Indian is given up as fast as it had been in the world. The Wish to BECOME a Red Indian is something different. As soon as you ARE the„indian“, which you never are, you don‘t want to BE him any longer.

As soon as you are satisfied, you are done.

–Dr. Alban Berg

rg 2020 Impressum

CK-Offspace https://www.instagram.com/ck_offspace/ 2. Ausgabe, 25.04.2020 print on demand Künstler/in Nicholas Warburg CK OFFSPACE

Gestaltung: Christian Kölbl