I was moved by Judith Milz, too.
Gold-plated crack in the floor located in one of the light yards of the University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe, dimensions: circa 1,2 m x 0,8 m (2018), destroyed on Tuesday, November 13th 2018
Judith Milz besitzt eine beinahe erschreckende Beobachtungsgabe, die präzise, empathisch und unkorrumpierbar die Feinheiten einer sozialen & ästhetischen Situation offenlegt. Erschreckend, weil sie es Judith Milz erlaubt Dinge zu vollbringen, die weit über das hinaus gehen, was für uns Normalsterbliche möglich scheint. So hat sie Kraft dieser Beobachtungsgabe die richtige zeitliche und energetische Konstellation erkannt, die es ihr erlaubte, die Lichthöfe der ehemaligen Munitionsfabrik, die die Hochschule für Gestaltung beherbergen, zu verschieben und zwar ausschließlich diese und nicht die des Zentrums für Kunst und Medien oder des Museums für Neue Kunst, also der direkten Gebäudenachbarn.
Wie können wir uns die Haltung vorstellen, mit der diese Arbeit bewerkstelligt werden kann, also die Haltung, durch die diese Architektur, tonnenschwer von trauriger Geschichte und dicht an beinahe utopischer Erwartung, um exakt einen Zentimeter Richtung Osten verrückt werden kann?
Es liegt nahe, von Mut sprechen zu wollen und das gefällt mir, aber das ist nicht die ganze Wahrheit. Die Wahrheit ist, die Größe dieser Geste lässt sich nur mit Bescheidenheit gegenüber der Aufgabe und undbedingter Aufrichtigkeit tragen. Und ich glaube, da müssen wir uns nichts vormachen, da können wir uns alle noch eine Scheibe von Judith Milz abschneiden.
Judith Milz hat uns schließlich alle mitbewegt und so wichtig es ist, dass wir unsere eigenen Geschichten erzählen, umso wichtiger ist es manchmal inne zu halten, wenn Geschichte geschrieben wird, ein Denkmal zu setzen und ganz konkret in diesem Fall anzuerkennen: “I was moved by Judith Milz, too.”
Some of our wounds are beyond healing.
To achieve peace with others and with ourselves it’s probably necessary to acknowledge that. I had digestion problems for almost five years not realizing I was lactose-intolerant. I constantly had a running stomach and sometimes I could barely stand straight. I’m good now. But caused by the constant irritation of tissue, I have a fissure down there since these days. Thank god it’s not a tear in the lining itself but more of a cut on the surface towards the scrotum. Still, ever so often when I wipe my ass the blood on the paper reminds me of that pain. I try not to resent these reminders.
I know a couple. For the longest time the character of their love was covert. They met in an environment where an open expression of their love would have caused serious social restrictions, at best. So they decided to come to New York, a place where a lot of people talk about healing and some seem to succeed in it – there are a lot of successful people here after all. However one of them is still too afraid to reveal their relation publicly. Families might find out however remote they are. It takes them apart as a couple. My closer friend … she takes herself apart. She tries not to resent her partner, she respects her fear. But how can she do this to her? If the barrier of an ocean is not enough to render this a safe space, what on earth can be? I meet her for lunch now every day. She cries and it takes me apart, too.
It can be deeply traumatic when the people we love mute our expressiveness and our eagerness to share our love with others.
On Tuesday, November 13th, a crack in this school’s floor was filled. A breach in its community’s and its visitors’ safety was closed. But this rupture was gold-plated. In fact it was this very piece. A piece that deliberately talks about appreciation, admiration and love for the work, aspiration and inspiration of one exceptional member of this community.
The fact that this piece was smashed and torn out of the floor won’t hurt what the piece expressed, quite on the contrary. I am grateful and moved, that its remainders have been recovered, that it has sparked conversations and opened initiative for intervention. But it hurts the work’s expressiveness and it hurts those eager and hoping to see this school as a space where work (and love) is appreciated. It’s a little wacky to think that an ammunition factory, its cold-blooded architecture and monstrous history, can be a safe space, but if it can’t, what on earth can be?
I do not resent the people clogging the wound in the floor of the ammunition factory. Maybe this building has its own way of healing. However let’s acknowledge the fact that cracks open ever so often, offering plenty of opportunities to gold-plate them.
