There is this one single piece of clothing that you could never obtain but you’re sure it would complete your life.
Signalling the right messages to the right people, giving your body the shape you always wanted it to have and making your parents roll their eyes if they’d ever see you in it.
Financially never stable enough, you’ve been buying the wrong size, the wrong colour or dupes. Slowly over time creeping closer and closer, but always an adjacent estimation, never the one you really want. You added tag words to your vinted account that set off a notification on your phone. Your alarm goes off: It’s an extra small, and it’s overpriced. Ugh, who put me in a body like this, you ask yourself and look at your dog sitting on your lap licking your wrist. Smiling at you, it’s the brightest smile you’ve ever seen.
Quit saving for cashmere, it’s not happening.
*
The pocket knife with your name engraved in it, that your granddad gave you many years ago, that stupid-you left on your keychain, that the stupid bouncer confiscated when you entered the club, the existence of which that same stupid fucking bouncer apparently has no recollection of.
Feeling so tired and defeated as you haven’t in a while you tell him, how he promised you, he would take good care of it and you could pick it up when leaving and the pre-drinks made you believe it. Hearing yourself talking and the bouncer turning away, you choose a single word from all the ones you know. “Truth” you say and you poke him right onto those capital letters spelling security on his big chest.
Waking up outside, your nose is bleeding all over your white T-Shirt. Looking up, you see the most beautiful bag on someone else.
*
You are sincerely the single biggest asshole I’ve ever met. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a while now. I’ve always had the words but never the stories. So I made them up, told them around, until you believed them to be true. You told me you never wanted to see or speak to me ever again in your life. I now live in a world where the same word means different things and different T-Shirts can mean the same thing. You don’t get it, nobody gets it. All these words are overused and lost their initial punch. ALL MY LIFE, I’ve been in love with you for ages, how did I never get over anything, ever. I’m a garbage man in this notes app, trying to clean up the mess I made. I’ve spilled everything, I told you every single secret I ever owned and no one believes me anything. I’m not talking anymore, I’m trying to make sense. I need new words.I wear them on and no longer up my sleeve for others to take and I know you know the truth. I really do care now.
I know I can’t find what I’m looking for and I’ve wasted so much time.
*
“She told me the shirt was fake, which worked to her credit, because intellectuals knew that to fetishise an original over a copy was the most unintellectual thing to do.” someone quotes off their phone, while you can only look at a sunset, just like yesterday, but this one is different.
*
You’re hurrying to work on a rainy Tuesday. Taking a left turn too tightly you bump into a stranger, knocking their hat onto the ground. You never looked at their face, but the hat said a single word that kind of threw you off. Walking on, you suddenly see it everywhere: The bus driver, three identically dressed teenagers standing around, the construction worker that gives you a lighter for your cigarette, … Your cold fingers google the word and add “cap hat blck”, your phone shows you an infinite row of black hats. They are all versions of each other. Each one a slight iteration of the one to the left. Each one around 100 euros. You add “the one…” in front of your search query and the same hats as previously appear. When searching that word with “cap hat black fake” all shown hats are suddenly the same but all their owners are individuals like me, just trying to be taken seriously in expressing themselves.
*
With the metal hook of the clothing hanger firmly in your hand, you are holding up a grey sweater, bearing a very ambiguous sentence, to your chest. You signal to your friend, standing at another rack to comment on it. With a frown and a slight smile they say:
“You sure? That’s so not you.”
„Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem scheinbaren Widerspruch zwischen musealer und religiöser Bildbetrachtung und der Frage, welche Kriterien diesen zu Grunde liegen. Ausgangspunkt für diese Fragestellung stellt eine Debatte dar, die in Russland geführt wird. Dort wurden sämtliche Kirchen nach der Oktoberrevolution 1917 enteignet. Der Besitz ging an den Staat über, was zur Folge hatte, dass viele der ursprünglich sakralen Objekte und Bauten zerstört, umgenutzt oder an Museen übergeben wurden. Nach dem Ende des Kommunismus in Russland wurde die Frage nach der Rückgabe dieser Besitztümer häufig gestellt. Aber erst 2007 kam es zu konkreten Planungen zu einem Gesetz zur „Übergabe des in staatlichem oder städtischem Besitz befindlichen Eigentums religiöser Zweckbestimmung an die religiösen Organisationen“ von Seiten des Staates. Dieses Gesetz sollte den Kirchen des Landes eine rechtliche Grundlage für Restitutionsforderungen bieten. Zeitgleich fühlen sich russische Museen durch das Gesetz in ihrem Bestand und in ihrer Existenz bedroht.”
„Die Frage, wem man in einer solchen Auseinandersetzung Recht geben sollte, ist durchaus schwierig: den Museen, die Kulturgüter (wie Ikonen) schützen, oder den Kirchen, für die Bilder Instrumentarien darstellen, die eine aktive Rolle im kirchlichen Ritus spielen und auch genau für diesen Zweck hergestellt wurden? Es geht also um die Frage, ob man sakrale Objekte, Kultwerke also, als Kunstwerke behandeln darf beziehungsweise wie dies zu rechtfertigen ist. Um diese Frage zu klären, ist es nötig den grundsätzlichen Umgang mit Bildern beider Institutionen zu klären. Hieraus ergeben sich auch Fragestellungen für die westlichen Museen und ihren bisherigen Gültigkeitsanspruch.”
‘This work deals with the apparent contradiction between museum and religious image viewing and the question of which criteria underlie these. The starting point for this question is a debate that is taking place in Russia. There, all churches were expropriated after the October Revolution in 1917. The property was transferred to the state, which meant that many of the originally sacred objects and buildings were destroyed, repurposed or handed over to museums. After the end of communism in Russia, the question of returning these possessions was frequently raised. However, it was not until 2007 that concrete plans were made by the state for a law on the ‘transfer of state-owned or municipally-owned religious property to religious organisations’. This law was intended to provide the country's churches with a legal basis for restitution claims. At the same time, Russian museums feel that their existence is threatened by the law.’
‘The question of who should be given the right in such a dispute is a difficult one: the museums, which protect cultural assets (such as icons), or the churches, for which images are instruments that play an active role in the church rite and were produced precisely for this purpose? The question is therefore whether sacred objects, i.e. works of worship, may be treated as works of art and how this can be justified. In order to clarify this question, it is necessary to clarify the fundamental handling of images in both institutions. This also raises questions for Western museums and their current claim to validity.’
„Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem scheinbaren Widerspruch zwischen musealer und religiöser Bildbetrachtung und der Frage, welche Kriterien diesen zu Grunde liegen. Ausgangspunkt für diese Fragestellung stellt eine Debatte dar, die in Russland geführt wird. Dort wurden sämtliche Kirchen nach der Oktoberrevolution 1917 enteignet. Der Besitz ging an den Staat über, was zur Folge hatte, dass viele der ursprünglich sakralen Objekte und Bauten zerstört, umgenutzt oder an Museen übergeben wurden. Nach dem Ende des Kommunismus in Russland wurde die Frage nach der Rückgabe dieser Besitztümer häufig gestellt. Aber erst 2007 kam es zu konkreten Planungen zu einem Gesetz zur „Übergabe des in staatlichem oder städtischem Besitz befindlichen Eigentums religiöser Zweckbestimmung an die religiösen Organisationen“ von Seiten des Staates. Dieses Gesetz sollte den Kirchen des Landes eine rechtliche Grundlage für Restitutionsforderungen bieten. Zeitgleich fühlen sich russische Museen durch das Gesetz in ihrem Bestand und in ihrer Existenz bedroht.”
„Die Frage, wem man in einer solchen Auseinandersetzung Recht geben sollte, ist durchaus schwierig: den Museen, die Kulturgüter (wie Ikonen) schützen, oder den Kirchen, für die Bilder Instrumentarien darstellen, die eine aktive Rolle im kirchlichen Ritus spielen und auch genau für diesen Zweck hergestellt wurden? Es geht also um die Frage, ob man sakrale Objekte, Kultwerke also, als Kunstwerke behandeln darf beziehungsweise wie dies zu rechtfertigen ist. Um diese Frage zu klären, ist es nötig den grundsätzlichen Umgang mit Bildern beider Institutionen zu klären. Hieraus ergeben sich auch Fragestellungen für die westlichen Museen und ihren bisherigen Gültigkeitsanspruch.”
‘This work deals with the apparent contradiction between museum and religious image viewing and the question of which criteria underlie these. The starting point for this question is a debate that is taking place in Russia. There, all churches were expropriated after the October Revolution in 1917. The property was transferred to the state, which meant that many of the originally sacred objects and buildings were destroyed, repurposed or handed over to museums. After the end of communism in Russia, the question of returning these possessions was frequently raised. However, it was not until 2007 that concrete plans were made by the state for a law on the ‘transfer of state-owned or municipally-owned religious property to religious organisations’. This law was intended to provide the country's churches with a legal basis for restitution claims. At the same time, Russian museums feel that their existence is threatened by the law.’
‘The question of who should be given the right in such a dispute is a difficult one: the museums, which protect cultural assets (such as icons), or the churches, for which images are instruments that play an active role in the church rite and were produced precisely for this purpose? The question is therefore whether sacred objects, i.e. works of worship, may be treated as works of art and how this can be justified. In order to clarify this question, it is necessary to clarify the fundamental handling of images in both institutions. This also raises questions for Western museums and their current claim to validity.’