I was already afraid that - due to the Covid-restrictions that hit the cultural sector over-proportionally and unfairly hard - this exhibition will never be allowed to open it's doors. However, you can now see the exhibition "THE WILL TO CHANGE" curated by Alexandra-Maria Toth at New Jörg until the 18th of December! The exhibition invited the artists Ed Fornieles, Gašper Kunšič and Max Kolten to think about masculinities from various angles and I was invited to write a text of free form in dialogue with Max Kolten.
His exhibited work - consisting of metal sculptures and drawings - reflects on misogyny and racism within gay scenes. This is a topic which interests me at least since I worked on my book about Berghain and our exchange about the topic was very inspiring to me and I am quite happy with the little miniature text I subsequently wrote for the exhibition's publication.
"When things seemed to get out of control, he made jokes and blamed the women on his stuff, saying they were simply too emotional under stress. These little quips worked – as intended – to lighten up the atmosphere. The women got more silent and efficient and he felt less stressed when he put the blame on others. So, progressively, he integrated this behavior as his usual demeanor in work hours (and there weren’t really many other hours in his life to be honest). It made things much easier. Especially the women from the far-off-country put him much less under stress since he stopped trying to always be concerned and serious with them – and instead lightened up the atmosphere with his mocking demeanor. He saw it as one of the values of his wonderful country he could teach them: to not be too uptight about roles and posts."
You can find the full text at the exhibition, in the publication or online here.
All the images in this post are of course from the magnificent work of Max Kolten, whom I thank gratefully for our exchange and the permission to post his work.
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