Human, very healthy curiosity
Exhibition: between question & answer
In an (email) dialogue with Oliver Kremershof, curator of the exhibition "The Interview: Between Question & Answer", the author and journalist François Maher Presley from the city magazine "Kultur in Hamburg" asks questions about the exhibition. In asking questions he recognizes normality, the core of any further development - personal and evolution in general.
Oliver Kremershof: First of all, I would be interested in the importance of interviews in your daily work?
François Maher Presley: Very little meaning, not to say none. Time is fast moving and the work pressure is very high. An interview requires a certain time organization, a meeting, a focus on the lively counterpart and also a lot of post-processing.
Furthermore: Do you see any differences between a normal conversation and an interview?
There are of course different terms.
An interview is largely understood to be a kind of question and answer game, a meeting of the conversation partner or his views on a certain topic or even his vita through targeted questions and correspondingly targeted answers or paraphrases or even confusing answers, maybe a disclose one Kerns, in whatever way.
A conversation is often less a question and answer, more an exchange of opinions, e.g. on one or more topics, the determination of differences in views or even parables, not necessarily limited to correctness in the matter, not necessarily taking place at the same level, not necessarily result-oriented, often more communicative, often also enumerating regardless of whether it is in the mutual interest to pass on this information, which does not have to and will not be requested, etc.
OK: Do interviews have a special use in conveying cultural events and places - if so, which ones?
FMP: Interviews often seem "more honest", in any case more personal and authentic, as long as the interlocutors dispense with the untruth or complicated and all-encompassing and therefore very vague formulations. They are certainly more important for television and radio than for the press, which also works very well as reporting and explaining the facts, which is also wanted and expected by the reader, insofar as he is interested in the topic at all.
OK: What's the question behind all of the questions?
FMP: People are curious. This curiosity, no matter how it is expressed and at what level, is what has always driven evolution. Our development is driven by questions about why and why, how, where from and where to. The difference to precisely this development and thus also the meaning of the question as such and as a peculiarity of the human character can be seen in comparison between the so-called 1st world and the 3rd world, where systems or religions often predominate, the questions and theirs Answering or attempting to answer them can be suppressed or even indirectly even forbidden, in which it is taught to accept, never to question, completely contrary to human necessity, completely contrary to its character and completely against any development, a widespread form of Suppression and manifestation of a power structure that is mostly at the expense of the masses. In the end, asking is the beginning of education. Education is necessary for development, for advancement and for a self-determined and "good" life in terms of content, but it is often not wanted.
OK: What's between question and answer?
FMP: There is a wanted, possibly unwanted, planned tension that can, should, will, and will be resolved by the answer, and in this space it still leaves open whether the question is a confirmation, an answer, a clarity, a denial or a Confusion receives as a reaction or even disappears afterwards, appears unimportant, is well placed, is well thought out, etc.
Tension.
Sometimes, however, there is also the satisfaction and pride of the questioner in the room, who would like to lend himself a certain pregnancy meaning through the form of the formulation or even a conclusion about the degree of difficulty of the question and thus about his own ability through the length of the pause until the answer hoped for and on the respondent's side, the pause and sometimes a pause and especially a long pause should draw attention to his own thoughtfulness, the actual and subsequent verbal answer should convey a certain depth, a certain honesty or even the nimbus of correctness .
Then there is rhetoric in between.
OK: In conclusion, I would like to end my interview with the following, perhaps somewhat abstract, question: Can a trip also be understood as a kind of question?
FMP: Only as such, if one is not indulging in the primitive pastime in the sun on the beach, in the discotheque or in a bar. Every view of a picture is the beginning of a journey through this very work, through which we can rediscover the world with the painter's eyes and learn to see it differently than we have before, not only to ask questions ourselves, not to hope for an answer when looking at it, but possibly come across answers, because the answer is always to be found in the question, not only symbolically, but even in the formulation.
I go even further and understand the recurring everyday life as a journey and thus as a question of meaning, purpose, the path itself and a goal. Thinking is ultimately traveling. Encounters are journeys. Conversations, looks, even ignorance. Travel, questions, answers, unfortunately with many a lot in between, the length of which leads to dramatic lethargy. Not traveling with the senses and therefore not asking and not hoping for, looking for and finding or getting answers is a creeping death and against development, evolution, human and very healthy curiosity.
OK: Briefly and finally to your person:
Your ideas and realizations?
FMP: The idea was always to live. So far, I've always been able to realize that.
OK: In the meantime?
FMP: Creative seclusion, no waiting, no hope, just reflecting on what is essential.
OK: Thank you very much for the interview!
FMP: Please.
Interview: between question & answer
Xenia Lesniewski, Lisa Marei Klein, Franz Dittrich, Norman Hildebrandt, Janine Thürer, Smood & Cornsen
Curator: Oliver Kremershof
To be seen in the award winners exhibition of the young curators' competition of KunstLeben eV
16.06. Vernissage, until June 21, 2010 Finissage, publication release party
in the Kulturreich Galerie Hamburg, Wexstraße 28.
