Trixi Blog EN

Family

On December 24th, I celebrated alone this year.
My partner went to be with his family abroad, and I withdrew from mine, who had their own plans anyway.

All my life, the 24th had meant setting out on a journey, moving between branches of the family. Now, with the youngest having moved out and celebrating with her partner, Christmas no longer exists as a formality.

Everyone celebrates how and where they wish—this year, so did I, alone in Vienna.

It was a beautiful Christmas, with my first tree of my own.
Even more beautiful, though, were the unforced, light-hearted visits with family on the 28th and 29th.

Perhaps Christmas simply lasts longer now.

Life Changes

“…and I ask myself why I’m still here,
apparently I’m too afraid to get out.”
— Peter Cornelius, Reif für die Insel

When a “life change” stands before you—often as a necessity made flesh—you are rarely pleased.
You don’t want it. But you also know it is not there without reason, and so everything about “carrying on as before” no longer feels the way it used to.

Its presence is there, stored in the back of your mind, and when you slip back into the critical zone, it leaps from its hiding place and looks you straight in the eyes—silent, direct, without mercy.

And then, at some point, it becomes easier.
Hopefully.

You never know how it will end beforehand.

But how it feels when you try—more often, more fully—
that, eventually, you do know.

Let’s see.

Toxic Messiah

I believe it is well meant.
But I don’t understand it.
Why deliver a message through hatred? Why not through humor, joy, or love? Love for the other person—who you yourself once were, before you knew something new.

Where does this talking down come from?
Where does the violence come from?

Why are you doing this?

You were never particularly interested in the battleground issues of the elites.

Since when has your identity been shaped by topics of public discourse?

Zero and one. The clothing of the teenagers at school is black and white.

You have issues. Your issues.
Do not give them up.

Turbulence

He sat beside me. My elbow touched his forearm. The coarse knit of his winter sweater pressed into the soft wool of mine. The sun shone—reflected from the airplane wing—onto my chest. I was happy. A feeling of comfort, nestled inside this enormous, soft, warm pink sweater. Nothing pressed, nothing weighed heavily on my shoulders.

I looked out the window, where everything was filled with sunlight and the world lay intact beneath me, in beautiful colors, neatly arranged. This sense of being gently cradled in something soft and warm was new to me.

Then the plane jolted. No! Don’t get used to this—this means nothing good! Maybe this is the end of life—mission completed! Child was made happy—crash—new life somehow, somewhere else.

The wing tilted up and down, the flight attendants took their seats. Bing—seatbelt sign on—please remain seated and fastened! Until further notice!

The sun shone in its most cheerful light, not a single cloud in sight. Nothing clouded the sense of wholeness, yet the plane bounced through the sky as if driving over a washboard road.

The Beauty of an Idea

Often he is fascinated by ideas he falls in love with. They appear so poetic, beautiful, and pure, so right, desirable, and clear— as if they were here on earth like grapes hanging in the air, ready to be plucked; one only has to decide which.

These ideas, with their essence, sometimes spread like brushfires and burn everything else away. People speak of nothing else. They chew the grape again and again, break it open, chew it once more, swallow and retch. It can take weeks, months, years before it is finally excreted.

And while they vomit and chew, they writhe, contort, and distort themselves, erupting now and then into jubilant praise when they catch their breath—celebrating their new existence.

The grape has lost all flavor, is no longer recognizable as a grape, yet everyone calls what they have vomited sweet wine.

But often, one plucks a grape in silence, in love with its shape, intoxicated by its taste, filled with bliss. One chews and chews again; the path changes, and the idea becomes real. The road turns rocky and gray, the sadness grows large. A glimmer of sunlight flashes far away—also a radiant blue.

Oh. One wouldn’t have thought so.

Open House (at University of Fine Arts)

When the once royal halls no longer inspire fear, no longer make one shudder with respect, and even begin to feel familiar, this is testimony to having gone through a process of development.

One recognizes the situation and emotions of the exhibiting students, the magnitude and seriousness of the event in their lives, and wonders whether it was the right decision for oneself—and whether this hall would really have made a significant difference.

Whether the questions and challenges of the present would then have been different?

You wander through the rooms, surrounded by exhibits on all four axes, and in the photography class you find a single photograph in the classical sense: an image of two men on a tram, street photography, photographed from behind, with beautiful, strong colors.

It hangs there like a foreign body, between abstract forms on two-dimensional supports, as objects or as videos and sound. The analog photograph, beautiful and powerful in expression, feels like a relic from another time—by a student who seems to have gotten stuck at some point and missed “progress.”

Failure

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. One would never have imagined it this way.
The others… with the others, it wasn’t like this.

You know you did something wrong; you know you are also to blame. But at the beginning, wasn’t it the case that you could almost expect the very best, the greatest? Where did it stop working?

Will you never be able to do it? Never manage it?

For the others, it all seemed so easy. Without effort, without thinking. One thing led to another and they were there—radiantly light at the summit.

At some point it was no longer light and radiant. You were overwhelmed and you struggled, one mistake following another.

Does that mean you’re not good enough? That you’re not made for this? Is it your fault?

It doesn’t matter. This is how it is now.

The Public

Producing for the drawer is safe. Nothing can happen to you there. One worked on the piece alone, finished it either in agony or with joy, and then it sits there—often loved and just as often hated—and one has it.

It is there in the drawer, and you yourself know what you are capable of.

Perhaps a few friends and family do as well.

When you take the work out and bring it into public view, you step onto a stage. In front of it: the audience.

You reveal something of yourself, give something of yourself that you may be proud of, and you do something you love and in which you see a greater meaning—and in doing so, you enter the arena.

In the end there is the question of thumbs up or down, comments, evaluations, and possibly further invitations.

That is the public. You want something from it, and it wants something from you. And in all of this, it is not about the art.

Postures

The prevailing tone is harsh. There is scolding and reprimanding; nothing is approved of, and even when something obviously good is done, it is relativized and stripped of its balancing force.

The positive, the kind, is not valued.

Out of fear of falling into disfavor themselves, people retreat together into a collectively frustrated existence.

The truth, however, is this: no one is spared.

If one complains in one corner with someone about another, that person, upon turning around, is already complaining with someone else about you. At least that is fair!

But my heart beats with joy, my gaze is full of curiosity and desire; I want to meet you with fun and collegiality, I want to form friendships.

You don’t— I know.

But I’m sticking with it.

The Clientele

They come and present themselves, the artists in front of us in the shop.
They are always driven by the urge for perfection, the best possible and affordable. This also applies to the understated and the trash people. They are aware of them and demand for them, or let you be.

Depending on the rung on the ladder, but also on the sympathy and taste of the staff, the interaction also differs; the nervousness of the operator, the scope of services of the entrepreneur and the urgency of the matter.

Who is the artist? At the art university, there seemed to be a kind of common denominator. The artist is very much concerned with himself, his own thinking, his own perception, his own life, his own vision. One is sensitive and often sensitive and one does not like to subordinate the ego unless one chooses by whom.

The outside reacts to the artist, perceives him in his version and feelings mix. It is a give and take between the ego and its opposite.