Devouring, Digestion, and Kokoreç
A guest post by Till Ferneburg on Eva Fàbregas’s *Devouring Lovers* at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Saralisa Volm and transformation through and by bodies.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
“Trains pulled by steam locomotives ran ceaselessly in and out of the main hall, which served as a vessel for these mighty machines—a kind of mechanical coitus,” says Eva Fàbregas in an interview about the exhibition. Into this industrial monument known as the Hamburger Bahnhof—which the artist envisions as a “giant mouth” or “womb”—she has placed something organic, something amorphous, which is a contradiction, for nothing here is shapeless or formless. The focus on the physical is undeniable: everywhere, there are bulges, ball-shaped tubes, and chains of balloons—swirling forms made of elastic fabric. Construction foam? Pollen? Marshmallows? Like snot and slime, the mustard-yellow, pink, and lilac Lycra sacks hang from the ceiling, winding around steel beams and reaching out at me with nubby tentacles. A museum employee remarks that one visitor is “eaten” and “digested” every day.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
Breasts are testicles
“I could eat you up,” they say when people are in love. We love to take in and love to put in: food, inspiration, tongues, limbs, and toys. We come together and are devoured. Bodies are machines of transformation, an elastic field full of narrative threads. So are these organs with sexual connotations? No, because that makes me think too often of “plastic.” Both the Greek word πλάσσειν (plássein), meaning “to shape” and “to knead,” and “plastic” as the generic term for synthetic materials. So they are sexual after all, because here we are with Jeff Koons’ silicone fillings and these contrasts between flaccid and taut, solid and liquid, the supporting leg and the free leg. These objects are not flawless; at second glance, you see seams—like scars—that are both unsettling and yet conform to the norm. They are what give form to that which is constantly in a state of transformation, birth, and decay. I think of the latex sculptural suit “Avenza” that Louise Bourgeois once wore, of the goddess Artemis of Ephesus with her many breasts—which could also be testicles—and of bodies other than the familiar ones. Last year, at the Biennale d’art contemporain in Lyon (curated by Till Fellrath and Sam Bardaouil, who now co-direct the Hamburger Bahnhof), Eva Fàbregas’s bodies looked like melted testicles.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
Questions about the body are questions of power
Which brings us to Saralisa Volm, who has written a furious yet highly readable assessment of the female body . The access she demands for a broader spectrum of perspectives—here it is granted. Take a look at them: the plump udders and peas, soft pods and climbing plants, trampled erectile and cavernous bodies. The imperfect, the obscene, the deficient—things that are no longer fought against. The body —a work in progress—is set free. What was once external control becomes body neutrality. Good or bad, beautiful or ugly—who cares anymore? Eva Fàbregas affectionately calls her forms “monsters,” which possess a nonchalance (and ambivalence) that the mass-produced, Botoxed present lacks.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
Expand Your Body Image
It suits Berlin, I think. This city has a fleshy vibe. There’s so much “bodywork” to be found here—haptic, tactile, queer—most recently at the Bazaar of the same name at the Holzmarkt, and now at the Matter of Flux Festival by and for FLINTA*, which just wrapped up. The notion of gender and sexuality as something fixed—deeply entrenched in our society—dissolves here. Touching and allowing oneself to be touched—that’s what this city makes possible, just as touch itself can be: challenging or healing. Body and gender—this also applies to spatial forms and sculpture. Cities like Berlin and Barcelona—where Eva Fàbregas grew up—are fluid, enveloping, entwining lovers, engaged in a ceaseless act with their inhabitants, resistance and devotion included. Eva Fàbregas’s installation-like growths expand our conception of the body and the architecture that surrounds us. The longer I observe this process of growth and becoming, the less conventional and judgmental my thoughts and concepts become. Something reciprocal and symbiotic emerges, in which I willingly embrace change. Even though growth can be viewed ambivalently—encompassing both the fruit within the body and the tumor that eats away at my insides.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
One of everything, please
Later in the day, I turn my attention to a different kind of offal: kokoreç (pronounced “kokorätsch”), made from lamb’s small intestine, bound together with fat and offal, wound into a coil (like an alien worm parasite), and grilled over charcoal. It’s not for everyone, because the flavor is intense—even pungent. I eat the slices behind the Ankerklause, down the Kottbusser Damm, at Gokoreç, where they grill the lamb horizontally over wood (instead of using gas as a heat source). It’s a thousand times better than a döner, even if it now reminds me of my bowel movements, the diverticula at Hamburger Bahnhof, and a colonoscopy I once had. Aren’t we all shape-shifters, ready for something new? Sensory? Somatic? Plasmatic?
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