Ingestion, Digestion, and Kokoreç
A guest post by Till Ferneburg on Eva Fàbregas’ Devouring Lovers at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Saralisa Volm and transformation through and by bodies.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
“Trains pulled by steam locomotives moved 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 unmistakable: everywhere, tubers, ball-shaped tubes, and chains of balloons, winding forms in 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 in love. We love to take in and we love to insert: food, inspiration, tongues, limbs, and toys. We unite and are devoured. Bodies are machines of transformation, an elastic field full of narrative strands. So are these organs with sexual connotations? No, because that makes me think too often of plastic. Both the Greek word πλάσσειν ( plássein ) for shaping and kneading, and plastic as the generic term for synthetic materials. So sexual after all, for here we are with Jeff Koons’ silicone fillings and these contrasts of flaccid and taut, solid and liquid, supporting and free legs. These objects are not flawless; at second glance, one sees seams, like scars, that are both jarring and yet conform to the norm. They shape what is perpetually transformation, birth, and decay. 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 (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 scathing yet highly readable assessment of the female body . The access she demands for a broader spectrum of perspectives—here it is granted. Look at them: the plump udders and peas, soft pods and climbing plants, trampled erectile and spongy tissues. The imperfect, the obscene, the deficient—no longer fought against. The body as a construction site is set free. What was once external control becomes body neutrality. Good or bad, beautiful or evil—who cares anymore? “Monsters,” Eva Fàbregas affectionately calls her forms, which possess a nonchalance (and ambivalence) lacking in the mass-produced, Botoxed present.
Photo: Till Ferneburg
Expand your body image
It suits Berlin, I think to myself. This city has a sensual, physical 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 has just come to a close. The notion of gender and sexuality as something fixed, deeply anchored in our society, dissolves here. Touching and allowing oneself to be touched—that works in this city, just as touch can be, whether 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 flowing, enveloping, devouring lovers, in a ceaseless act with their inhabitants, resistance and devotion included. Eva Fàbregas’s installation-like growths expand our body image and the architecture that surrounds us. The longer I observe this process of growing into being, the less conventional and judgmental my thoughts and concepts become. Something reciprocal and symbiotic emerges, in which I willingly accept change. Even though growth can be viewed ambivalently, encompassing both the fruit within the womb 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?
You can find out more about Till Ferneburg soon on his website >>www.tillferneburg.de