Devouring, digestion and cocoreç
A guest contribution by Till Ferneburg on Eva Fàbregas' Devouring Lovers at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Saralisa Volm and the transformation through and by bodies.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
"Trains pulled by steam locomotives ran incessantly in and out of the main hall, which was like a vessel for these powerful machines - a kind of mechanical coitus," says Eva Fàbregas in an interview about the exhibition. In this industrial monument called Hamburger Bahnhof, which the artist can imagine as a "giant mouth" or "womb", she has put something organic, something amorphous, which is a contradiction in terms, because nothing here is shapeless and without form. The preoccupation with the corporeal forces itself upon us: Tubers, spherical tubes and balloon chains everywhere, writhing forms in elastic fabric. Construction foam? Flower pollen? Marshmallows? The mustard-yellow, pink and lilac-colored lycra bags hang from the ceiling like snot and slime, winding around steel beams and reaching for me with nubby tentacles. A museum employee says that one visitor is eaten and digested every day.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
Breasts are testicles.
I could eat you up, they say in love. We like to take in and put in: food, inspiration, tongues, limbs, and toys. We unite and are devoured. Bodies are transformation machines, an elastic field full of narrative strands. So are these sexually connoted organs? No, because I think too often of plastic. Both the plastic, ancient Greek πλάσσειν plássein for shaping and kneading, and plastic as a generic term for synthetic materials. So sexual after all, because we are dealing with Jeff Koons' silicone fillings and these contrasts of limp and taut, solid and liquid, standing and playing leg. These objects are not flawless; at second glance, you see seams, like scars, which are both irritating and yet conform to the norm. They form what is constantly changing, giving birth and decaying. I think of the latex sculpture suit Avenza that Louise Bourgeois once wore, of the goddess Artemis of Ephesus with her many breasts, which could also be testicles, of bodies other than the familiar ones. Last year, at the Biennale d'art contemporain in Lyon (directed by Till Fellrath and Sam Bardaouil, who now head the Hamburger Bahnhof as co-directors), Eva Fàbrega's bodies looked like melted testicles.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
Questions about the body are questions about power
Which brings us to Saralisa Volm, who has written an angry yet compelling assessment of the female body . The access she demands for a broader spectrum of perspectives is granted here. Take a look at the plump udders and peas, soft pods and climbing plants, trampled glands and erectile tissue. The imperfect, the obscene, the deficient, which is no longer fought against. The body as a construction site is set free. What was previously external control becomes body neutrality. Good or bad, beautiful or ugly, who wants to know anymore? Eva Fàbregas affectionately calls her forms "monsters," which possess a casualness (and ambivalence) that is lacking in today's ready-made, Botoxed world.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
Expand body image
It suits Berlin, I think. This city is a flesh-and-blood kind of place. There is so much bodywork to be found here—haptic, tactile, queer—most recently at the bazaar of the same name at Holzmarkt, and now at the Matter of Flux festival by and for FLINTA*, which has just come to an end. The idea of gender and sexuality as something fixed, deeply rooted in our society, dissolves here. Touching and being touched is possible in this city, just as touch can be challenging or healing. Body and gender, this also applies to spatial bodies and sculpture. Cities like Berlin and Barcelona, where Eva Fàbregas grew up, are fluid, enveloping, devouring lovers, in a ceaseless act with their inhabitants, resistance and devotion included. Eva Fàbregas' installation plants expand our body image and the architecture that surrounds us. The longer I look at this growing process, the less conventional and judgmental my thoughts and concepts become. Something mutual and symbiotic emerges, in which I willingly accept change. Even if growth can be seen as ambivalent, encompassing both the fruit in the womb and the tumor that eats away at my insides.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
One of everything, please
Later in the day, I devote myself to another type of offal: kokoreç (pronounced kokorätsch), lamb small intestine, glued together with fat and offal, wound into a coil (like an alien worm parasite) and grilled over charcoal. It's not for everyone because it has an intense, even pungent flavor. I eat the slices behind the Ankerklause, down 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 kebabs, even if it reminds me of my bowel movements, the diverticula in Hamburger Bahnhof, and a colonoscopy I once had. Aren't we all shape-shifters, ready for something new? Sensory? Somatic? Plasmatic?
You can find out more about Till Ferneburg soon on his website >>www.tillferneburg.de