VISITATION 10 GROSS LINDOW / BRODY 13-1-2013
FIRST MOVEMENT (Nitschke) - Leaving Haim Steinbach
SECOND MOVEMENT (Zakharov) - Kiss and Slap
THIRD MOVEMENT (Nitschke) - Introducing the constellation of Pipe
FOURTH MOVEMENT (Nitschke) - Gogol / Levinas: Nose and Hitler
Special Guest - KATHRIN BECKER
FIRST MOVEMENT (Nitschke) - Leaving Haim Steinbach
The first movement takes place at an area close to the station of Brieskow-Finkenheerd, within the sphere of politics and war. I a distance of approximately 200m from the station there are the remains of a former terminal, close to the railway tracks, a gathering of some low buildings standing at the margins of an almost square yard which is partly surrounded by a wall and right now covered with snow. In a gateway leading to this yard destroyed by a former fire Nitschke prepared - in advance of the first movement - an object quoting the work of Haim Steinbach. In presence of Kathrin Becker and Vadim Zakharov Nitschke places three dark blue watering cans and two light green heads of cabbage on a two-part socle painted dark green and violet, which is mounted to the wall in a way characteristic for the work of Steinbach. Subsequently Nitschke plays on his Iphone - which he places on the socle as well - a percussion-based interlude from the first act of the opera 'Nose' of D. Shostakovich and departs direction of the opposite corner of the yard concentrating on an object in front of his chest which is not visible for Becker and Zakharov.
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SECOND MOVEMENT (Zakharov) - Kiss and Slap
On their way from the parking lot to the yard Zakharov left a plastic bag at the corner of another ruin, hanging on a bush. He asks Nitschke to go back to this bag, to take what he will find inside and to follow to the advice which is written on a note he will find there as well. Zakharov asks him to strew a track of cornflakes on his way. In the bag Nitschke finds a black top hat which he shall put on and return. When he is back at the gateway Zakharov presents a torchlight to Nitschke and tells him that he informed Kathrin Becker and asked her to pass on this information by way of a gesture if she wants to. Kathrin Becker does without.
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THIRD MOVEMENT (Nitschke) - Introducing the constellation of Pipe
Subsequently Nitschke invites Zakharov and Becker to have a snack at the restaurant Die Preussenstuben close to the Brieskower Kanal at Groß Lindow. There he asks Zakharov and Becker each to take 12 chocolate-pralinés into the mouth, to lick and taste them and to put them back into the packing. Then he leaves the restaurant to drive to the center of the sphere located in the forest nearby, within some five minutes of driving distance, where he embeds each of the pralines into a piece of butter and fixes them together with a piece of hardboard to the thin trunks of the pine trees at average breast height in this area of the forest. The pieces of hardboard are broken parts of the wooden body first introduced at the bridge of Fürstenberg in 2011 to represent the painting 'Embarkment for the island of Kythera' there. The painting used to be assigned by a rectangle painted with plum jam on the wooden body. Each of the broken pieces is now partly covered with a thin layer of chocolate. Nitschke informs the guests - after he picked them up at the restaurant and brought them to the forest - that preparing the visitation he had cast - with chocolate - the vague shape of a pipe onto the wooden body and then broke it. The broken parts of the body are now alloted to certain treetrunks in a way that, looking from above they form points on the outline of a pipe. Nitschke presents Zakharov and Becker a map of the stars in sky then to be found above the place. The map overlays a print of a google earth image of the area. The outline of a pipe is marked on this map by way of adding some of the stars to a new constellation.
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FOURTH MOVEMENT (Nitschke) - Gogol / Levinas: Nose and Hitler
The fourth movement takes place outside the area encompassed by the Dead Zone Map, in front of the ruin of the former castle of Brühl, now Brody. In the courtyard of the baroque castle, - of which just the building envelope is left, covered with a roof, but a staircase with four caryatids still introducing the main entrance -, Nitschke delivers a speech. The speech combines an abridged version of the "Nose" of
N. W. Gogol with a text of Claude Levinas, "Einige Betrachtungen zur Philosophie des Hitlerismus" (Some reflections on the philosophy of hitlerism). Both texts penetrate each other, alternating at intervals. Nitschke offers Zakharov and Becker to listen or to go to the restaurant nearby, as it is very cold and the speech will last about half an hour. Kathrin Becker backs out after a couple of minutes, Zakharov stays to document the speech. During the speech night is falling, it is dark when Nitschke finishes his speech, hammers a nail to the wall of the courtyard and leaves the nose there.
A fourth movement Nitschke prepared is not performed and kept for further realization: in the near of the station of Neuzelle stands a building next to a crossing, the building totally locked, the openings of the windows closed with sheetmetal. Two mirrors are to be mounted to this building, in a distance of about one meter, at the height of the second level of the train, where Zakharov and Becker will sit, pass by and be reflected successively, the reflection and the intervall being barely perceivable because of the speed the train.
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