EMAIL TO THOMAS HIRSCHHORN MUSEE PRECAIRE ALBINET
Thomas Hirschhorn
MUSEE PRECAIRE ALBINET
2004
MUSEE PRECAIRE ALBINET
2004
In the meantime I have seen CORALY'S FILM about MUSEE PRECAIRE ALBINET. She gave me a COPY in AUBERVILLIERS. I find the FILM BEAUTIFUL for at least four reasons:
1 It provides a GENUINE - not a COMPLETE (as if it were a matter of COMPLETENESS) but precisely a GENUINE - IMPRESSION of your PROJECT, of your WORK: of its COMPLEXITY, its DIFFICULTY and BEAUTY. It should not be forgotten that IMAGES NEVER LIE, as SOUND THEORETICAL COMMON SENSE, CRITICAL INTELLIGENCE wants to make us believe. IMAGES do not lie any more nor less than FACTS. Perhaps they lie LESS LYINGLY because they present themselves unmistakably AS IMAGES (of FACTS or not).
2 It shows the MANIFOLD DIVERSITY and CONFLICTUAL CHARACTER of those PARTICIPATING and INVOLVED in the MUSEE PRECAIRE ALBINET.
3 For me it COUNTS especially that the viewer experiences something of the JOY, CHEERFULNESS, ACTIVITY and AFFIRMATION OF LIFE which your WORK releases, can release:
· THROUGH ITS FORMAL PRECISION AND RIGOUR,
· THROUGH ITS SELF-AFFIRMATION AS ART (INSTEAD OF AS SOCIAL WORK, POLITICS OR ETHICAL-MORAL COMMITMENT),
· THROUGH YOUR UNCOMPROMISINGNESS, INSISTENCE AND PRESENCE,
· THROUGH YOUR LOYALTY TO YOUR 'MISSION', YOUR WORK. YOUR STANDING ALONE, as you say. Anyone who TOUCHES THE UNKNOWN to INVENT a NEW LANGUAGE, an ALIEN VOCABULARY, the TERRIBLE LAW OF A GRAMMAR OF THE TERRIBLE, of the NEW and UNCANNY, knows of this LONELINESS!
· THROUGH YOUR INSISTENCE on the WILL that REMAINS TRUE TO ITSELF by opening up to the OTHERNESS of the OTHER. The OTHERNESS of the OTHER, of its other WILL, its OTHER THINKING, its HOPES, DREAMS, PHANTASMS.
4 Your OFF-CAMERA VOICE STATEMENTS are PERSUASIVE AND CLEAR. You know that I AGREE with everything you say here. Those who accuse you, or are going to accuse you (if it so happens) here of NAIVETY understand NOTHING. Nothing of the VIOLENCE and NECESSARY SELF-ACCELERATION, INTENSITY and RESOLVE of your SELF-ASSERTION as an ARTIST. Anyone who risks a POSITING, an ASSERTION, an AFFIRMATION - that is, simply TO LIVE - as a PHILOSOPHER, as an ARTIST, knows that a MAXIMAL MINIMUM OF NOT-KNOWING, that a RISKED IGNORANCE, a certain LACK OF UNDERSTANDING, that SELF-OVERTAXING and HAZARDED BLINDNESS, in short, that HEADLESSNESS in relation to one's own cultural, economic, political, ideological, social, etc. SITUATION is part of the RELATIVITY and PARTICULARITY and PERSPECTIVITY of the CIRCUMSTANCES and CONDITIONS. ART never comes from KNOWING. ART produces, stabilizes and makes itself plausible not through INSIGHTS, OPINIONS, ARGUMENTS. ART generates itself not out of CERTAINTIES, CONVICTIONS, OPINIONS or VIEWS. ART is CONTACT with valid UNCERTAINTY: AFFIRMATIVE RESISTANCE, INCONSIDERATE PRODUCTION, INVENTION BEYOND THE PALE OF HISTORY. There is ART only as a CONFRONTATION with UNFATHOMABLE CONTINGENCY.
I was a GUEST at MUSEE PRECAIRE. I already knew that it is an incomparable WORK in its BEAUTY and INCOMMENSURABILITY and PRECISION and DECISIVENESS: INCOMPARABLY DIFFICULT, INCOMPARABLY ELABORATE, INCOMPARABLY CONFIDENT, INCOMPARABLY UNSECURED, INCOMPARABLY AMBIGUOUS, INCOMPARABLY COURAGEOUS, INCOMPARABLY EXCESSIVE, INCOMPARABLY FRAGILE. As you say: a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, FINALLY NON-IMPOSSIBLE!
You can do it, you SURVIVE it, LIFE - you need only TRUST, CONFIDENCE, the WILL TO SURVIVE in order to EXIST, to LIVE, to WRITE, to GO ON - says Duras.
I want to try (I have been trying already for a long time in PHILOSOPHY) to AFFIRM with PHILOSOPHY an OPENING toward the LIVEABILITY OF WHAT IS UNLIVEABLE IN LIFE. As you know, I am repeatedly confronted with the ever-same OBJECTIONS, with the ever-same CRITIQUE, with AGGRESSIVE FEAR and INSULTED SENSIBILITY. The CRITIQUE OF PHILOSOPHY and the MISTRUST of it are always directed against the supposed INCOMPREHENSIBILITY of PHILOSOPHY, its ALIENATION from the WORLD and REALITY, as people say. People think it is an ESCAPE FROM OUR TIME, from „REALITY“. But PHILOSOPHY is nothing other than an AFFIRMATION OF THE HERE AND NOW:
· Nothing other than LIFE AFFIRMING ITSELF.
· Nothing other than an INSISTENCE ON SURVIVING IN THIS WORLD.
· Nothing other than a COURAGE TO LIVE and RESISTANCE IN THE PRESENT without BENDING to the "POWER OF THE EXISTING" (ADORNO), without giving up ON LIFE before having BEGUN to live, without FALLING ASLEEP IN VIEW OF THE POWER OF 'FACTS', without restricting the INCALCULABILITY of what is COMING, without CENSORING the EXCESS OF WHAT IS COMING.
PHILOSOPHY IS JOY IN LIVING, in its IMPATIENCE and MEASURELESSNESS, in LIFE as IT IS.
Please send me CORALY'S E-MAIL ADDRESS so that I can thank her for her BEAUTIFUL FILM.
All the best,
Marcus
Translated from the German by Michael Eldred