Friday Beyeler: I couldn`t help but wander

A garden is always an attempt at taming. With a great deal of self-imposed work, flora is brought into a form - often into a form that is intended to have the appearance of chance. The garden is a place of pleasure, a place of longing, of desire, but also of distinction. It is a place of seeing and being seen. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the garden, it is also a place where you can lose yourself in thought - or quite literally, for example in one of the labyrinths that you sometimes find in castle gardens. And, of course, the idea of the garden also includes paradise, in relation to which we are per se exiles: That is, our separation from the animal world, the beginning of self-consciousness, the beginning of nakedness, and that of shame.

This Friday at Beyeler, led by Olga Hohmann and David Karl Max, will explore the various forms of movement and (self-)observation that take place in the microcosm of the "garden", focusing on the question of class, demarcation and belonging - as well as on the simultaneity of the microcosms and microorganisms that gather in the biotope, visible and invisible. Particular attention is paid to the pond - a standing, constructed body of water in which these aspects literally blur together.

Two literary positions are playfully explored: Virginia Woolf's short prose and the long poem/prose poem "I remember" by Joe Brainard. Both positions invite us to sharpen our perception, which can be scaled up or down. "I see something you don't see" is a child's game, but can also lead to a sharpness of observation - just as a continuation of "I remember" triggers a free association that leads to a collective literary process. The (childhood) memory that seems like the most personal thing suddenly becomes visible as something exemplary in which particular cultural experiences appear. However, when these associations blur into a carpet of shared memories, a new, non-linear narrative is spun.

Olga Hohmann is an author and artist living in Berlin. She writes essays, prose and texts for performances. In 2022 "The Overview Effect" was published by Textem Verlag Hamburg, in 2023 "In deinem rechten Auge wohnt der Teufel" by Korbinian Verlag. David Karl Max is an artist and lives in Basel and Berlin.

Meeting point: Pavilion in the park
The event will be held in German and English and also allows spontaneous participation on site.

"Friday Beyeler" allows you to start the weekend with a relaxed visit to the museum after work. The museum remains open until 9 p.m. and the restaurant until 10 p.m. Unless otherwise stated, "Friday Beyeler" is included in museum admission. From a minimum consumption of CHF 25.00 per person in the restaurant, admission to the museum on the same evening is free. Valid on Fridays from 18.00 - 21.00 hrs.

CHF 25.00 / 20.00
Young people up to 25 years: free admission

Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.