{"id":6953,"date":"2020-10-11T16:57:16","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T14:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stoa169.com\/idea\/letter-to-bernd-zimmer-at-the-opening-of-stoa169\/"},"modified":"2023-03-05T23:48:01","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T22:48:01","slug":"letter-to-bernd-zimmer-at-the-opening-of-stoa169","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stoa169.com\/en\/home\/idea\/letter-to-bernd-zimmer-at-the-opening-of-stoa169\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Bernd Zimmer at the opening of STOA169"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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A LETTER\u00a0TO\u00a0<\/strong>BERND\u00a0<\/strong>ZIMMER\u00a0<\/strong>ON THE\u00a0<\/strong>OPENING\u00a0<\/strong>OF\u00a0<\/strong>STOA169<\/strong><\/p>

Tilman Spengler<\/p>

\u201cI wish to express to you, dear\u00a0Bernd, my impressions in the\u00a0form of a letter, a rather archaic\u00a0and universal method of\u00a0exchanging ideas should be\u00a0preserved, as should columns,\u00a0and which, in addition, has the\u00a0advantage of being strictly\u00a0committed to a length (or\u00a0brevity) of occasion.<\/p>

For me, the most profoundly\u00a0astonishing, and to some extent\u00a0scandalous, aspect of your\u00a0STOA169 project is not so much\u00a0the underlying idea of a\u00a0columned hall as a place of\u00a0worldwide cultural encounter;\u00a0much more bemusing, rather, is\u00a0the fact (and herein lies the\u00a0scandal) that such a bright idea\u00a0has not been realised for over a\u00a0millennium (at least \u2018at our end\u2018,\u00a0to put it somewhat casually).<\/p>

Until, dear Bernd, when, here in\u00a0Polling, on a few clover fields\u00a0surrounded by sparse woodland,\u00a0you had the stage floor\u00a0excavated for the production of\u00a0a new Stoa poikilos, and\u00a0thereby\u2026 well, I\u2019ll come to that\u00a0later.\u00a0With the archetype of the\u00a0columned hall, of the Greek\u00a0Stoa, it comes down to a rather\u00a0important connection, one that\u00a0you perfectly demonstrate: the\u00a0Greek name for the building, as\u00a0stated, is Stoa poikilos; the\u00a0often ignored poikilos is usually\u00a0translated as \u2018colourful\u2018, which\u00a0in this context is disagreeablytwee, for it was not meant in the\u00a0sense of multicoloured sequins.\u00a0Correctly translated, instead, it\u00a0would mean \u2018diverse\u2018 or\u00a0\u2018multifaceted\u2018, as it pertains to\u00a0rather more than just the colour\u00a0of the surface area.\u00a0And it is precisely this mission of\u00a0diversity, of the multifaceted, of\u00a0the distinct and the intimated\u00a0that has been fulfilled by the\u00a0artists whom you invited. Each\u00a0and every one of them has\u00a0designed a pillar after their\u00a0fashion, in their very own\u00a0particular language. A kind of\u00a0Pentecostal miracle rendered\u00a0through columnar architecture.<\/p>

The result, dear Bernd, is\u00a0nothing less than a walk-in atlas\u00a0of the world. Each work of art\u00a0tells its own story as well as\u00a0many others: stories from us,\u00a0stories about us, stories from all\u00a0corners of our universe,\u00a0including the starry sky. Simply\u00a0poikilos! A forest of pillars,\u00a0spread, naturally, across a\u00a0meadow, under the protection\u00a0of trees, a place where, since\u00a0time immemorial, miracles and\u00a0phenomena belong.\u00a0Although it may well be\u00a0appropriate here, we have\u00a0unfortunately too little space to\u00a0thoroughly discuss the notion of\u00a0the column. However, as we\u00a0were conducting our last tour\u00a0around the hall and you pointed\u00a0out to a journalist the columns\u00a0that were \u2018supporting\u2018 and those\u00a0that were \u2018non-supporting\u2018, it\u00a0occurred to me that this notion\u00a0can be interpreted in quite a\u00a0few ways. Indeed, it is not\u00a0merely a matter of the physical\u00a0supporting of a roof, but also of\u00a0the bearing of a message, of\u00a0artistic testimonies and of\u00a0dreams. Luckily for us, then,\u00a0\u2018only\u2018 columns of a supporting\u00a0kind have been brought\u00a0together in this hall.\u00a0<\/p>

I have no wish to lapse here into\u00a0what Schopenhauer once\u00a0termed \u201cthe intoxication of the\u00a0column-metaphor\u201d, but I would\u00a0like to point out that the poetry\u00a0of the accrued sculptures need\u00a0fear no comparison with the\u00a0literary genre itself, not with\u00a0Rilke\u2019s \u201ccolumn outliving temples\u00a0almost eternal\u201d, and neither with\u00a0H.lderlin\u2019s \u201cnight-bird [that]\u00a0shyly mourns atop the pillar\u201d;\u00a0when faced with the beauty and\u00a0wit of this hall, Gottfried Benn\u2019s\u00a0call to \u201cspit on this obsession\u00a0with columns\u201d exposes itself all\u00a0the more as half-baked\u00a0nonsense.<\/p>

I promised, dear Bernd, a few\u00a0lines ago, to return to the topic\u00a0of \u2018staging\u2018. I wanted to weave it\u00a0here into one of Walter\u00a0Benjamin observations on the\u00a0reproduction of art; a text that\u00a0is, after all, one of the testamentary\u00a0decrees of our generation.\u00a0And what is more subject to the\u00a0verdict of reproducibility than\u00a0the surfaces of columns? Then,\u00a0however, I found the most\u00a0puzzling notation in my jotter\u00a0\u2013 \u201csee also Richard Wagner\u00a0and his artwork!\u201d, which led me\u00a0to the composer\u2019s claim that \u201cthe\u00a0work of art should have the\u00a0inaccessibility of a vision in a\u00a0dream\u201d.<\/p>

In this moment I thought of\u00a0Polling, dear Bernd, of a large\u00a0clover field by the Ammer river,\u00a0of a clear view onto the at all\u00a0times freely accessible,\u00a0archetypal Stoa poikilos,\u00a0brought newly into being by\u00a0you. Here in Polling you have,\u00a0out of a vision in a dream,\u00a0created the aforementioned\u00a0world atlas, which people can\u00a0walk through at any time \u2013 the\u00a0very opposite of inaccessible.\u00a0To put it bluntly, there has never\u00a0been less Wagner. And not just\u00a0in Polling.<\/p>

Approachability has its price,\u00a0naturally, the price that all\u00a0objects have that awaken\u00a0desire. Whoever is even slightly\u00a0familiar with the history of\u00a0temples and columns will know\u00a0that every literary quotation\u00a0about pillars that outlasted\u00a0temples reminds us of the\u00a0universal human desire for blind\u00a0destruction. But there is no need\u00a0to explain that to you, dear\u00a0Bernd, you, who, during your\u00a0journeys to the temples, made\u00a0greater headway than Sindbad\u00a0the Sailor did (at this point it\u00a0should probably be explained\u00a0to readers who are no longer\u00a0\u2013 or perhaps never have been\u00a0\u2013 familiar with the middle\u00a0eastern tale of Sindbad, that in\u00a0the syllable \u2018Sind\u2018 there is an\u00a0Arabic allusion to the transboundary\u00a0Indus River in Asia\u00a0and also the temple culture\u00a0situated there. To our good\u00a0fortune, dear Bernd, you, of\u00a0course, journeyed much farther\u00a0eastwards, to Polynesia and far\u00a0beyond, to such a degree that\u00a0the title \u2018Stoa Sindbad\u2018 could\u00a0confidently be added to your\u00a0pre-existing moniker of \u2018Stoa\u00a0Saint\u2018).<\/p>

In the history of the world,\u00a0vandalism is unfortunately much\u00a0more widespread than art or\u00a0column design. It is, however,\u00a0precisely this art \u2013 this work of\u00a0art here \u2013 that is one of the few\u00a0sustainable weapons that we\u00a0have at our disposal against the\u00a0vandalism of the psychological\u00a0and the physical (it is both a\u00a0small consolation and a serious\u00a0warning that Alexander the\u00a0Great, one of the most evil\u00a0vandals we have known, did not\u00a0survive for long after his brutal\u00a0destruction of the temple city of\u00a0Persepolis). In contrast, dear\u00a0Bernd, you, along with the\u00a0artists, have sent a signal, for\u00a0which, on behalf of all future\u00a0visitors, I would like to now\u00a0thank you for.<\/p>

No letter is complete without\u00a0a short postscript:\u00a0The word ‘xenos\u2018 in Greek\u00a0means just as much \u2018stranger\u2018 as\u00a0it does \u2018guest\u2018. In recent weeks\u00a0we have seen, not only on the\u00a0islands of Greece (but glaringly\u00a0so there), how necessary it is to\u00a0consider both of these terms\u00a0together; the walk-in world atlas\u00a0in Polling also serves as\u00a0reminder of this. And for that,\u00a0dear Bernd, my very special\u00a0thanks!\u201d<\/p>

Polling,
13. September 2020<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A LETTER\u00a0TO\u00a0BERND\u00a0ZIMMER\u00a0ON THE\u00a0OPENING\u00a0OF\u00a0STOA169 Tilman Spengler \u201cI wish to express to you, dear\u00a0Bernd, my impressions in the\u00a0form of a letter, a rather archaic\u00a0and universal method of\u00a0exchanging ideas should be\u00a0preserved, as should columns,\u00a0and which, in addition, has the\u00a0advantage of being strictly\u00a0committed to a length (or\u00a0brevity) of occasion. For me, the most profoundly\u00a0astonishing, and to some extent\u00a0scandalous, aspect […]<\/p>\n

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