There is no story for that which I live. I need other

Markues
Daucus bernardi —
Ulla, fame, and the carrots
of the art market
“There is no story for that which I live. I need other instruments to tell
my life.” 1 René Pollesch
ill. 1
ill. 2
There is a bouquet of lilies on the table; alongside it a portfolio and
business cards. On the business cards: Ulrike Bernard in a little parrotprint dress. The back: no contact details, but a photo of me. With our
hands, we show the letters C.V., the acronym for curriculum vitae, to
the camera. Instead of art works in the portfolio, there are texts put
together about the living conditions of visual artists.2 On the invitation
to Ulrike Bernard’s exhibition “Fame” in the Galerie Foto-Forum Bozen,
there are orchid flowers in foam flower holders next to each other. They
have been changed digitally into trashy figures in the style of emoticons.
They are reminiscent of the proud orchid arrangements on window sills
common in so many (parental) houses in the South Tyrol and they are
a comment on present (artistic) existence: shared loneliness, precarious self-sufficiency, masked emotions, dreams of beauty, glamour and
assumed distinctiveness are all cut off from the basic maintenance of
one’s own existence. Fame means hunger in Italian.
Ulrike Bernard somewhat contradicts this common artistic existence
with her artistic practice – Kisskissbyebye artist as genius; see you images as a window to the world; was great to have you rectangular art
on the wall, muah! She goes further and uses media and techniques to
create a new sense of form: conventions of the system of cultural production are quoted, the roles and expectations towards visual artists
remain unclear, the grasp on photography and the relationship between
image and text is critical and her approaches to performance and participation are rooted in their locations. She collaborates with friends,
reciprocal services are paid for, every participant is mentioned by name,
collaboration as a principle, communality as a contrast. The conditions
of production are an artistic and purposeful part of the work.
In “From Work to Text”, Roland Barthes describes the change of perspective from observing the contents of an artwork to viewing the related text, which is plural, unrestricted, and multi-dimensional. 3 The
meaning of the image is changed by the processes of linking, association,
overlapping, variation, and the simultaneous creation of several layers
of meaning. With this notion of intertextuality, Ulrike Bernard’s working methods - which encompass all media - become understandable,
ill. 3 / 4
ill. 5
in particular her application of photography, as well as her approaches
to participatory art.
“Nails Now” (2012) is a performance piece which Ulrike Bernard has
already shown at the final evening of a studio house in Berlin Mitte,
in the Bar O Tannenbaum, the Kunstwerke Berlin institute and in the
project space Venus & Apoll in Düsseldorf. For free, she offers you her
services as a nail artist and paints a fingernail for every visitor. The
nail salon is specially set up each time according to the specific location. Friends design and lend out the props which range from flyers
to tabletop fountains, printed hand towels and nail dryers. A photographic reproduction of the catalogue, from which visitors can pick
out the design they want, serves as poster and printed edition. The art
nails designed by Ulrike Bernard are named underneath in typewriter
font and the titles reference the design, the art works and books which
they borrow from. 4 Buzz words like lifelong learning, Job Centre or
individual consultation also appear - but Ulrike Bernard is neither
teacher nor therapist. To let oneself be beautified in this studio, each
person has to become a living extra within the work and at the same
time become an active part in the much broader creation and distribution of the ‘text’ of the work. Former visitors might tap impatiently
with their finger nail design “I’m not your therapist” while searching
for a psychotherapist on the computer or flick through pages of travel
prospectuses with “Nowhere is better than this place” or think of their
next job interview or date as they look at the melon painted on the
“lack of charisma can be fatal” nail.
In the exhibition in Bozen four photographs which refer to “Nails Now”
shoot out on metal trays from a column in the room. Common to them is
that they each allude to a design in the nail catalogue, combine text and
image, and refer to other artists. 5 With Ulrike Bernard’s work, it is often
the case that through questioning the absent, the decisions which led
to the formation of the work become clear. Where the photographs are
concerned, the absence of the classical genres and the common (gender)
stereotypes is notable. And thus - without tipping into an oppositional
position of another, ‘better’ art of representation - she points implicitly
to the processes which preceded the creation of the work. Photography
here isn’t about a portrait of something, reproducing, documenting or
capturing it (or at least not people, landscapes or houses). It is a surface
of indexical representation which shifts between the photographic, the
ready made, as well as image and text, and in its interlinking functions
in a similar way to the nail studio.6 As such the references don’t just stay
within a work, but continue in further artworks and in Ulrike Bernard’s
working and presentation methods.
ill. 6
ill. 7
Spread about the room on plastic stools are five photographs of the
installation “Dark Matter” (2012). Also belonging to this is a framework
of a trolley on which a stereo system is placed instead of shopping bags.
Music plays quietly out of this object and on listening to the lyrics it becomes clear that it deals with a repeating theme of Ulrike Bernard’s art:
work.7 A photo found from the internet leans against the trolley; it is of
a person studiously reading a newspaper in the dead sea. It was photocopied massively zoomed in and, using ‘copy and paste’, Ulrike Bernard
has placed Gregory Sholette’s book in the hand of the figure. In his book,
Gregory Sholette confers the concept ‘Dark Matter’ metaphorically upon
the working conditions in the art world. With that he is describing the
often invisible masses of allegedly unsuccessful cultural producers,
working away in the background, who through their very presence enable the existence of the universe of ‘high culture’ and even hold it together. 8 In her artistic work Ulrike Bernard turns this relationship on
its head: all participants are visible and are paid. Work is recognised as
work and with that the basis for change is created. 9
In the visual arts, the end products are often top segment luxury
products. But the precarious is as a given precarious - there is no meta
level and nothing to shake out there. Although this is seemingly everywhere in the art world and often complained about, it is rarely courageously represented. In Ulrike Bernard’s photos and installations the
form of the work and its saleability give way to a state of temporariness.
The uncertain, cheap and trashy is left whole in all its dissonence and
vacuity instead of being polished and thereby taken to the next level
of upper class taste. The value-generating categories like saleability, a
long-lasting artwork, clearly defined authorship and the formal training of an artistic style dissolve. Ulrike Bernard is certainly visible to the
art market and yet economically elusive, in a condition of self-imposed
invisibility - a void which the art market turns its back on because it
could collapse within it. There, fragile, temporary communities of artists are to be found, living apart from the art market and denouncing its
basic conditions. They say to the art market: not at any price. And it answers back: not at this price. Ulrike Bernard is part of both systems. She
doesn’t place herself in a comfortable position of the non-participatory,
observing artist: opposition is hardly something to be appropriated, and
collaboration and solidarity are, at the moment, the viable routes.
1
René Pollesch „Lob des alten litauischen Regieassistenten im grauen
Kittel“, in Kreation und Depression –
Freiheit im gegenwärtigen Kapitalismus
ISBN 9783865991263
2
This portfolio contains the texts mentioned in this essay.
3
And that’s the difference between Work
and ‘Text’: “the work is a fragment of
substance, […] the Text is a methodological field. […] while the work is held
in the hand, the text is held in language:
it exists only as discourse. The Text is
not the decomposition of the work;
rather it is the work that is the Text’s
imaginary tail. In other words, the
Text is experienced only in an activity,
a production.” Roland Barthes “From
Work to Text” in Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Poststructuralist Criticism
ISBN 0416737404
4
Let’s get into details – quoted are: Felix Gonzalez-Torres „Untitled“ (1990),
Markus Miessen „The Nightmare of
Participation“ (2010), Sigmar Polke
„Höhere Wesen befahlen: rechte obere
Ecke schwarz malen“ (1969), Gregory
Sholette „Dark Matter“ (2006), Jenny
Holzer „Truisms“ (1977-79), Jobcenter
(2003) de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobcenter
5
Let’s get into details again – combined
and quoted are : a) Anton Peitersen
„The Imbedded Carrots Theory That
They Can’t Explain With Money“ (2012),
his hand with the design „Individual
Consultation“; b) Paul Thek „Afflict
the Comfortable, Comfort the Afflicted“
(1985), a puzzle of the universe and a
hand with the design „lifelong learning“; c) A book with the title „Gossip
Lies Fantasies“, a still from Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s „Die bitteren Tränen
der Petra von Kant“ (1972) and a hand
with the design „lack of charisma can
be fatal“; d) A ribbon with the following written on it: „never say never*sleep
late*indulge your curiosity*waste a little
time“, digital drawing „how are you?“ by
Omri Livne and a hand with the design
„the nightmare of participation“
6
Rosalind Krauss defines the index thus:
„As distinct from symbols, indexes establish their meaning along the axis of
a physical relationship to their referents.
They are the marks or traces of a particular cause, and that cause is the thing to
which they refer, the object they signify.“
Photos and ready-mades work in a
similar way. „The readymade’s parallel with the photograph is established
by its process of production. It is about
the physical transportation of an object
from the continuum of reality into the
fixed condition of an art-image by a moment of isolation, or selection. And in
this process, it also recalls the function
of the shifter. It (the shifter – note from
Markues) is a sign which is inherently
“empty”, its signification a function of
only this one instance, guaranteed by
the existential presence of just this object. It is the meaningless meaning that
is instituted through the term of the index.“ Rosalind Krauss „Notes On The
Index: Seventies Art In America“ in October Vol. 3, 1977
7
Playlist: Wiz Khalifa „Work Hard Play
Hard“, Nina Simone „Work Song“, Jimmy
Cliff „You Can Get It If You Really Want“,
Lou Reed „Don’t Talk to Me About Work“,
Steely Dan „Dirty Work“, Tennessie Ernie Ford „Sixteen Tons“, Donna Summer
„She Works Hard for the Money“, Modest
Mouse „Custom Concerns“, Devo „Working in a Coal Mine“, Brooks & Dunn
„Hard Working Man“, Frieder Butzmann
„Arbeitslied“, Andy Giorbino „Facharbeiter“, Floh de Cologne „Arbeit macht
frei“, Konstantin „Sing mir ein kleines
Arbeiterkampflied“, Peter Licht „Wir
sind jung und wir machen uns Sorgen
über unsere Chancen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt“ tbc.
8
„Without this obscure mass of “failed”
artists the small cadre of successful artists would find it difficult, if not impossible, to sustain the global art world as
it appears today. Without this invisible
mass [...] there would be no one left to
fabricate the work of art stars or to
manage their studios and careers.“ He
has already observed a change. „[...]
artists have learned to embrace their
own structural redundancy, they have
chosen to be “dark matter”. By grasping the politics of their own invisibility and marginalization they inevitably
challenge the formation of normative
artistic values. Here “politics” must be
understood as the imaginative exploration of ideas, the pleasure of communication, the exchange of education, and
the construction of fantasy, all within
a radically defined social-artist practice.“ Gregory Sholette „Introduction: The Missing Mass“ in Dark Matter
ISBN 9780745327525
9
The recognition of work as work is a basis for change in capitalism. In „Revolution at Point Zero – Housework, Reproduction and Feminist Struggle“ Silvia
Federici describes it so: „To have a wage
means to be part of a social contract, and
there is no doubt concerning its meaning: you work, not because you like it, or
because it comes naturally to you, but
because it is the only condition under
which you are allowed to live.“ With
this, her theory remains open for fights
against sexism and racism. The recognition that work as work ist the step to political change is in my opinion transferable to the industry of cultural production: „Wagelessness and underdevelopment are essential elements of capitalist
planning, nationally and internationally.
They are powerful means to make workers compete on the national and international labor market, and make us believe
that our interests are different and contradictory. Here are the roots of sexism,
racism and welfarism (contempt for the
workers who have suceeded in getting
some money from the state), which are
the expressions of different labor markets and thus different ways of regulating and deviding the working class.“
ISBN 9781604863338
List of Ilustrations
ill. 2
Invitation card for the
exhibition Fame
Gallery Foto-Forum
2013
ill. 1
(CV)
ill. 3
Installation view from the performance Nails Now at studio
spaces Berlin Mitte, 2012
Photo: Fil Ieropoulos
ill. 4
Installation view from the
performance Nails Now
at KW Berlin, 2012
Photo: Katrin Gruber
ill. 5
Nails Now poster
2012
ill. 6
Installation view of
Dark Matter at Universität
der Künste Berlin, 2012
ill. 7
U.B. with Trolleys
(Jerusalem), 2010
Photo: Markues