I’m on my way to Düsseldorf. I’ve been invited to exhibit a video work of mine in an exhibition/bar space in downtown Düsseldorf. The exhibitions in the space are planned to change every 2-3 days during the month of October. 15 different off-spaces, curators and artist initiatives have been invited to set up the various shows throughout the month.

 

Lately I’ve been occupied with something that without a better description for I would call - feelings.

 

I’ve come to realize more and more that most of people I encounter, do not tend to express, share or even experience very much their true emotions and feelings in their inter-personal relations. Most of the people seem to shut themselves off from the world. This has come to bother me very much. At times I feel that I am surrounded by robots or androids or puppets whose emotional capacities have been either cut out in a complicated surgery during their childhood or have never really had such capacities or have been taught throughout the years that such expressions of feelings and emotions is something bad and shameful that should be repressed and discouraged.

 

We arrive at Arnhem.

 

I reach for the sandwich that my girlfriend had prepared for me for the ride. It’s a home baked tuscany bread that she was busy baking throughout the night and morning, filled with raisons, nuts, cherry tomatoes and basil.

 

It’s delicious.

 

A Dutch family of a father, mother, daughter and son are waiting on the platform.

 

Then they suddenly disappear.

 

The sun is about to finally set behind a beautiful green field in the horizon. It’s been wonderful weather the last few weeks.

 

 

 

The church bells of Düsseldorf are ringing.

 

It’s 10:00 am.

 

I’m in the nice little balcony of the apartment where I’m staying at. It’s another beautiful sunny day.

 

I woke up earlier by an alarm clock of a mobile phone that someone left in the living room where I’m sleeping in that started playing Chopin at 5 o’clock in the morning. Luckily I managed to turn it off and fall back asleep for a few more hours.

 

The church bells are ringing louder now.

 

Me and Moritz do 10 minutes of meditation on my request.

 

Afterwards we decide to have some coffee.

 

I am being informed from the kitchen that there is no more filter coffee. There is only instant coffee. I say that it’s fine for me.

 

“And I guess you are drinking it without milk?”

 

“Is there no milk?”

 

“No, not really, but there is some kind of soya rice milk.”

 

“Is that like soya milk? I do like soya milk.”

 

“It’s even better than soya milk”.

 

We agree on instant coffee with soya rice milk.

 

After coffee we are planned to go out and start setting up the show for tonight. Someone else just went to his girlfriend’s place that is arriving from Spain today, to pick up a dvd player for our show.

 

I ask the guy to check if the dvd has a “repeat” option.

 

“Repeat?”, He asks.

 

“Yes, Repeat.“ I answer.

 

Foto Moritz Wegwerth

 

We are in the exhibition space after a short walk in the city. In the city I took some pictures.

 

A little guy who is also participating in the show asks if Andreas Gursky is going to come tonight. He is in Gursky’ class at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie together with Moritz. Moritz answers that he doesn’t know but that he sent him the invitation and thinks he might come with his wife Julia from the Stoschek collection.

It’s 2:30 pm.

 

We just finished checking my video work in the space.

 

It works perfect. I’m happy for that.

 

We check the sound.

 

It works perfect as well.

 

Now I can relax a bit.

 

I eat bread from the turkish shop just across the street with some Dutch cheese I brought over from Holland.

The bar is situated about 10 minutes walking distance from the Central station of Düsseldorf. In the neighborhood there are many immigrants from Arab and African countries.

 

-

 

I’m upstairs in the bar. I had another cup of coffee.

 

It’s 17:14. The people are expected at 19:00. Until then I hope to have some time to go back to the apartment and have a quick shower.

 

Outside the sun is starting to set down. Into the bar some golden rays of sun light come in and light up some of the darkened spots.

 

One of the people from the apartment comes upstairs followed by two guys who appear to be gallerists that are offering him a solo show in their exhibition space in Cologne. He seems to be half confused and half excited about this turn of events. The gallerists are acting a bit weird and secretive and trying to have their conversations in dark areas of the bar and basement. The others are trying to fix the lights for the show.

 

The gallerists are now leaving the bar. They are young and wear casual-elegant dark clothes.

 

They seem harmless.

 

The bar girl is now drying out some wet glasses with a towel.

 

Moritz comes up. He says that they had some problems with the lights but that now he thinks it will be ok.

 

He suggests I go back to the apartment if I want to put my stuff there and have a shower. He gives me the keys and I take my computer and camera back to the apartment.

 

I have a quick shower and put some fresh clothes on.

 

The church bells ring again. It is 6 in the evening.

 

I put on my clothes and leave the apartment for the opening of our exhibition.

 

-

 

We just came back from the exhibition opening.

 

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning.

 

The exhibition and party was super.

 

I was busy drinking, talking and playing kegel.

 

At some point I went into the space where my video was showing.

 

Moritz was there talking with some older guy who was wearing a black jacket and watching my video.

 

“Hi”, the guy says to me.

 

“Hi”, I answer and shake his hand as I hold onto my beer bottle in the other hand.

 

“Meet my professor”, says Moritz.

 

“Hi”, I say again with a small nod of my head and look a bit closer into the face of the guy.

 

It’s Andreas Gursky.

 

He seems like a normal guy.

 

He looks for about another minute at my video and then the little guy from his class comes and grabs him out of the room to show him his work.

 

I remain with my bottle of beer in my hand and look around the empty room that just a second ago hosted Andreas fucking Gursky.

 

I guess those were my 2 minutes with Gursky.

 

I feel confused.

 

I sit down on the chair in the room and look at my video by myself in which I am riding a chair as if it were a horse.

 

I wait a bit more in the room in case someone feels like coming in again.

 

After 2 or 3 minutes in which no one comes in I leave the room.

 

In the corridor Gursky is talking with some guy.

 

He is wearing Asics sneakers and a pair of jeans that are a bit torn in their bottom.

 

He looks like a polish immigrant from the neighbourhood outside that stepped into the exhibition space.

 

He has dark hair with some gray strips in it. I am perhaps one head taller than he is.

 

I walk around the corridor a bit checking him and the situation out and then I go upstairs and order another drink from one of the bartenders.

 

When I come downstairs Gursky is still there. He is walking around the corridor and looking at some stupid stick instead of at my video.

 

I walk around a bit more and think to myself how did it come to this, that this little guy with dark hair and gray strips, torn jeans and Asics sneakers, who is one of today’s most famous artists in the whole entire world, is standing next to me in a shitty bar in Düsseldorf, drinking some shitty beer, and talking about non sense with some guys half his age who are busy licking his balls?

 

Somehow when I realize how absurd all of this situation is I go to the bowling room and throw the bowling balls as hard as I can against the pins. When I miss out on all of the pins I go to the toilet and tell myself that it’s all full of shit. Then I flush the toilet and start enjoying myself again with the bartenders upstair.

 

When Gursky passes just across my face on his way out of the bar I say silently to myself Danke schön and Auf wiedersehen.

 

He doesn’t answer.

 

Then he comes back again and sits around the bar area.

 

Andreas fucking Gursky.

 

I start thinking to myself what is the difference between him and me.

 

What is it? What makes him Andreas Gursky and me Ohad Ben Shimon?

 

How far are his mental capacities from mine? Does he know some secret formula, a secret hand shake or password? Why don’t I know the formula or password? Does he perhaps know all of the right people? Do I know all of the wrong people? Maybe he has a good sense of humor and is good with people? Maybe I’m entirely boring and not good with people? Maybe my nose is too long? Maybe I’m too tall? Maybe I’m too shy? Maybe I should be less critical? Maybe I should be more critical? Maybe I’m too young? Maybe I’m too old? Maybe I’m too weird? Maybe I didn’t read all the right books? Maybe I read too many of the right books? Maybe I didn’t go to the rights schools? Maybe I didn’t go to all the right openings and parties? Maybe I didn’t go to bed with someone I should have gone to bed with? Maybe he was at the all the right places at the all the right times? Maybe I was in all the wrong places at all the wrong times? Maybe I still have a chance? Maybe I already have what I will ever need? Maybe I don’t need any more? Maybe I’m happy? Maybe I’m sad? Maybe I am in a good place? Maybe I am in a bad place?

 

I simply have no clue what the right answers might be, but as I sit on the bar and talk with some people and the sweet bartenders, Mr. Andreas fucking Gursky, who used to be one of my big artist-heroes when I was still living in Israel and whilst studying at the art academy in The Hague, sits 1 meter away from me drinking his shitty german beer and is busy talking with some bald guy with glasses about nonsense.

 

A meter’ distance never seemed so far to me as it did at that very moment.

 

 

It’s 8 o’clock in the morning.

 

I’m completely hung over.

 

I hear some music from a mobile phone. It’s some kind of morning tv show music. I search for the mobile phone in a leather jacket that belongs to the person who’s room I’m sleeping in. He is not here. He spent the night at his girlfriend’ place whom I seem to know from a previous encounter earlier this year.

 

I turn off the mobile.

 

Then the mobile goes off again.

 

I search for the right buttons to press in order to turn off the alarm but they are all in German, so I just take out the battery and hope that I didn’t fuck up the guy’s mobile phone.

 

During the night I dreamt about Andreas Gursky.

 

I was sitting together with him in a bar drinking some german pils and talking about our next show in some big museum in Düsseldorf. He asked me what I thought about the piece he wanted to show in the show. I suggested him to think it over as I thought people might think he is a bit over the peak and is just continuing to make monumental and spectacular images to suck up to the elite and bourgeoisie.

 

“Ohad”, Andreas said, ”You must start to think about your career as well. If you want to be someone in this whole art world, you too must start to suck up to the elite and bourgeois as well, or at least suck up to someone, who knows someone from the elite and/or bourgeoisie. Thats the rule of the game”.

 

“Is it really?”, I ask Andreas.

 

“Well, Ohad, thats how I did it. I don’t know about you, maybe you can find another way.”

 

“I do hope so”, I say to Andreas and then I awaken from my dream.

 

Today I plan to hang out with my friends Christoph and Felix who are coming to visit me from Essen and later at night go to the exhibition / bar again.

 

Tomorrow I am leaving back to The Hague.

 

I put on some internet music.

 

The lady singer has a deep and scratchy voice.

 

She sings the following words:

 

“It’s just a slow day moving into a slow night, it doesn’t matter what you do, everything stays the same. Like tomorrow is never going to come, and when it does its going to be the same damn thing.”

 

 

It’s 9:30 o’clock in the morning.

 

I’m on a train back to The Hague.

 

Yesterday was another enjoyable night at the exhibition / kegel bar.

 

The train stops in Oberhausen.

 

I said goodbye to Moritz who walked me over to the train station. It was nice spending some time together.

 

Before I got on the train we grabbed a coffee and croissant in a cafe in the station.

 

In the cafe we talked about relationships. There Moritz taught me a saying in German that he wrote down for me on the paper bag in which the croissant was in.

 

I take out the paper bag and look at the words Moritz wrote down.

 

“Was sich liebt, das neckt sich”. (What you love, you hurt).

 

Is that the sadistic essence of all relationships? Do we need each other just to hurt each other? Is love too much for us to handle that we need to taint it with some pain or discomfort?

 

Some guy who wears casual clothes just passes my seat in the train. He stops in front of the seat and asks something from the guy who is sitting in front of me. The guy looks into his jacket and takes out some documents.

It appears to be an under cover passport inspection.

 

The guy in front of me who looks turkish or curdish, hands over his document to the casual looking under cover passport control guy. He returns the documents and says “Danke schön”.

 

We pass the invisible border between Germany and Holland.

 

The landscape outside changes into a misty flat picture.

 

The train arrives at Arnhem.

 

In Utrecht I have to change trains to The Hague. I hope to grab something from Albert Heijn before getting on that train.

 

I look for something interesting to read on my laptop. I downloaded a file a few weeks ago from the internet called “1001 books you have to read before you die”. Somehow the books are all gone now. I think I need an internet connection to view them.

 

Instead of reading a book from the 1001 books I have to read before I die, I find a pdf in one of my folders about Max Sebald. The pdf contains some notes 2 american guys made of a lecture Sebald held at their school or institution 3 days before his death which they then re-constructed into a coherent text. In the text Sebald states the following:

 

“In the 20th century we know that the observer always affects what is being observed. So, writing biography now, you have to talk about where you got your sources from, how it was talking to that woman in Beverly Hills, and all of the trouble you had at the airport.”

 

We arrive at Utrecht Central station. I close my computer and pick up my bag.

 

-

 

I’m in the train from Utrecht to The Hague.

 

I picked up a Nicoise salad from Albert Heijn quickly before getting on the train.

 

I try to open the little plastic bag with the salad dressing in it with my teeth but I cant get it open. Then at some point I do and the sauce splashes all over my fingers.

 

It’s another beautiful and sunny autumn day outside. The weather has been wonderful lately.

 

I finish eating the salad. It was nice. I wipe my hands from the mayonnaise salad dressing and type a bit more on my laptop. Then I close the laptop and look outside into the landscape. The golden sun paints the Dutch fields and farm houses in a beautiful light.

 

I stretch my neck, then I turn around in my seat a bit and then I decide to stop thinking or writing for a while and just be.

 

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