OBAMAINBERLIN  VADIM ZAKHAROV / NIKLAS NITSCHKE

A flat white cuboid leans against a big trunk, driftwood at the bank of the Oder. The cuboid is a reconstruction of the body introduced at visitation 2 and reused several times (see visitations 9 and 10). The body has the dimensions of the painting 'Embarkation to the island of Kythera' of Watteau. Standing in front of the white plane Nitschke sticks at a time two details from two photographs of the David by Michelangelo (see visitations 6 and 11) to his own body. He sticks the details to the parts of his body according to the parts of the statue depicted on the details. The two photographs dissolved that way show the David from two different points of view right and left of the statue at its location at the Galleria dell'accademia in Florence. Trying to link both views within his own body in trying to let the two parts touch each other, Nitschke tightens his body and articulates the power invested by various sounds. After any of these trials, of course in vain, Nitschke sticks the two details to the white cuboid where the statue starts to be visible by the fragments adding slowly to each other. The details from one of the two quoted photographs show in addition graphical elements, shapes which remind a constructivist vocabulary as the white cuboid already does.

 

After having run through several trials of linking, Nitschke hands a loudspeaker over to Zakharov which is connected with his own Iphone by bluetooth. He puts his Iphone to a waterproof bag and hangs it to his neck; then he carries the white cuboid into the water of the Oder, lays it onto the water - it being very cold already - lays himself onto the cuboid and allows the current to carry him away to the middle of the stream. He holds contact with Zakharov by way of his Iphone which plays the recording of sounds of a battle from WW II (a decisive battle between soviet and german troops took place at the rivers of Oder and Neiße), until the distance gets too big and the connection is interrupted.