Künstlerschultern (Gerassim) (Artist’s Shoulders (Gerassim)) / 2006 / wood, plaster, leather, glas, book, mirrored foil / 32 x 65 x 34 cm / Show: entdeckung machen, entdeckung sein? (Making a discovery, Being a discovery?) / 12.05. – 25.09.2006 / Engholm Engelhorn Galerie, Vienna

The salvation of … is described in relation to a detail from Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Illichich. The protagonist of the story suffers from the dishonesty and lovelessness of his estranged surroundings. He finds comforting and painless hours when he lets his servant come, and then elevates his two legs on the shoulders of the simple farmer (sic). Pasolini adapts this detail in his film Teorema. There, it is a mysterious guest who throws the members of a industrialist’s family completely off course: not only by his immediate naturalness (as Pasolini emphasizes), but also by actual touch. How attractive are the promises of the works of art, if not the artists? I did consider occasions to provide my shoulders.