When I was in Prenzlauer Berg this morning I experienced simultaneous feelings of familiarity and repulsion. It reminded me of Park Slope, of brooklyn last summer when I stayed with irka. Where everything was so nice and so expensive. So yuppie and so unattainable (nedostupne). The lifestyle that I once lived (and yearned for) in new york – of expensive coffees, weekend brunches, browsing and buying books that I still haven’t read.
Comfort in discomfort. A comfortable discomfort.
Something pretending about it, what inken called “artificial.” Pretending – believing to ourselves and in front of others – that “all of it” is attainable: fulfilling job, family life, yoga and spirituality… and fun. Satisfaction. And feeling bad when we couldn’t attain it, it looked like everybody else was attaining it and it was through some personal fault that I (the individual) could not, that I was somehow incompetent, inadequate. But we are imperfect humans, life is unpredictable, and you can’t have it all. The artificiality, the falseness lies in convincing ourselves, telling ourselves, lying to ourselves, that we can.
We walked through a farmer’s market, so like the one in Union Square (only calmer, nicer, without the surrounding street noise, cars honking). And I began to be homesick for kyiv, for its unattractiveness, dirtiness, ugliness. I was surprised.
I met Jess for lunch, and encountered the point of view of the commercial side of art from a person who I know is intelligent and creative and I respect. So I can’t simply write off her position. She argues that artists need to eat (of course) but not only that, that they need the gallery system and collectors for that is the system in which art exists, gains value. Collectors buy from galleries. Then the galleries donate later to museum collections. Getting our artists into prestigious collections. Through which they accrue value. She says the art market is one of the most corrupt. Because of the many sides and complexity of art’s value.
Visiting the Kunstlerhaus (open artists’ studios), something comes together in my memory. Then walking through Kreuzberg, Orianenstrasse full of recognition of previous brief visits, the plaza from which I called Katya when I couldn’t find her. The realization that I already feel completely at home here.
as much at home as anywhere else.
What is home? feeling of safety.
Kurt schwitter’s poem about the banhof.
