#Erich Fried

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Wer will, dass die Welt bleibt, wie sie ist, will nicht, dass sie bleibt.

Whoever wants the world to remain as it is does not want it to remain.

Erich Fried (1921 – 1988), Austrian lyricist, translator, and essayist

[metamorphesque]

i am the ashes of my flames whose firewood i became which minced me as i was an ax holded by my hands which burned me until i searched cooling in my ashes

Ashes, Erich Fried 

[ma-pi-ma]

Perché tu per me sei qualcosa di più

e perché io non voglio essere niente senza te

Ti amo

non perché sia un bene o un male

e non perché sia giusto o sbagliato

ma perché io ti amo.

Erich Fried, È quel che è

[la-scigghiu]

Tardo autunno la prima neve le strade di notte ghiacciate ma verso te Poi all’alba la ferrovia monotona stancante ma verso te Verso la tua voce verso il tuo essere verso il tuo essere tu verso te.

.🦋.

🔸 Erich Fried

[sammeldeineknochen]

Konstruktive Selbstkritik Meine Schwäche war mein Gefühl der Überlegenheit Das habe ich überwunden Jetz bin ich vollkommen

Erich Fried: "100 Gedichte ohne Vaterland", S.99

[parish-in-hell]

[ahmetcumhur-blog]

KIŞ BAHÇESİ

Sarı ve kırmızı pullu

mektubunun

zarfını ektim

saksıya

Sularsam onu

her gün

büyür bana

mektupların

Güzel

ve hüzünlü mektuplar

ve mektuplar

senin kokunu taşıyan

Yılın bu geç zamanında

değil de

daha önce

yapmış olsaydım keşke

[swingtoscano]

Ogni volta

che penso a te

si forma nella testa

uno spazio vuoto

una specie di anticamera a te

dove non c'è nient'altro

Costato

alla fine di ogni giorno

che nella testa

deve essere rimasto molto più spazio vuoto

di quanto non credessi

Erich Fried

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Zu sagen: »Hier herrscht Freiheit« ist immer ein Irrtum oder auch eine Lüge: Freiheit herrscht nicht.

To say: "Freedom rules here" is always an error or a lie: freedom does never rule.

Erich Fried (1921 – 1988), Austrian lyricist, translator, and essayist

[ma-pi-ma]

Parlare agli uomini

di pace

e pensare a te

Parlare del futuro

e pensare a te

Parlare del diritto alla vita

e pensare a te

Della paura per il prossimo

e pensare a te -

è ipocrisia

o è finalmente la verità?

Erich Fried, Discorsi, da È quel che è

[la-scigghiu]

«Mi auguro talvolta di poter saziarmi di baci con te ma poi dovrei morire per la fame che ho di te perché più ti bacio e più devo baciarti: I baci non nutrono me solo la mia fame.»

.🦋.

🔸Erich Fried

[justwatchmyeyes]

Erinnern das ist vielleicht die qualvollste Art des Vergessens und vielleicht die freundlichste Art der Linderung dieser Qual

Erich Fried

[sammeldeineknochen]

Zur Kenntlichkeit Ist eine Demokratie in der man nicht sagen darf daß sie keine wirkliche Demokratie ist wirklich eine wirkliche Demokratie?

Erich Fried: "100 Gedichte ohne Vaterland", S.75

[vcasih]

nicht nichts ohne dich / aber vielleicht weniger

[ajarofpickledtears]

Höre, Israel

Erich Fried

Als wir verfolgt wurden,

war ich einer von euch.

Wie kann ich das bleiben,

wenn ihr Verfolger werdet?

Eure Sehnsucht war,

wie die anderen Völker zu werden

die euch mordeten.

Nun seid ihr geworden wie sie.

Ihr habt überlebt

die zu euch grausam waren.

Lebt ihre Grausamkeit

in euch jetzt weiter?

Den Geschlagenen habt ihr befohlen:

„Zieht eure Schuhe aus“.

Wie den Sündenbock habt ihr sie

in die Wüste getrieben

in die große Moschee des Todes

deren Sandalen Sand sind

doch sie nahmen die Sünde nicht an

die ihr ihnen auflegen wolltet.

Der Eindruck der nackten Füße

im Wüstensand

überdauert die Spuren

eurer Bomben und Panzer.

[longlistshort]

There are many little stories within Sascha Mallon’s lovely installation for Wolf Tales, on view at Kentler International Drawing Space. It includes sculptures and drawings, with pieces emerging from the walls. Each little section captures the imagination.

The press release below includes a poem by Erich Fried, as well as a more detailed discussion on the artist's motivations and process.

WOLF TALES “It is madness says reason It is what it is says love It is unhappiness says caution It is nothing but pain says fear It has no future says insight It is what it is says love It is ridiculous says pride It is foolish says caution It is impossible says experience It is what it is says love.” – Erich Fried

This installation synthesizes the artist’s engagement with drawing, glazed porcelain, and mohair silk crochet yarn, bringing all these elements into one monumental work that flows around the edges of the space. For Wolf Tales, Mallon is going back to her roots of drawing after being actively engaged with molding, firing, and glazing porcelain objects. In this exhibition she is primarily a draftsman on a quest, mirroring the main heroes of the story as they go through transformations. Going back to drawing in this more monumental format signifies for Mallon her long-cherished wish of making this method more dynamic, forgetting its static nature, and allowing drawings to flow.

The titular wolf is an ambivalent embodiment of spirit and energy that is at first at odds with a human presence of a girl and then goes through a series of spiritual and physical changes, inner and outer shifts. In his newly published autobiographical book, Japanese author Haruki Murakami devotes significant attention to how a narrative of a novel shifts when characters are presented indirectly versus being contemplated from within their own mind-frame. In her drawings for this exhibition, Sascha Mallon likewise changes the degree of her engagement with the heroes and heroines whom we see. Themes of belonging, sustainability, mistrust, loneliness, and connection are based on narrative points presented through figures of a human girl, a wolf, a raven, and others. Yet Mallon uses her subtle drawing skills to connect disparate parts of the narrative so that we can subconsciously see the connections and let the story unfold in our own time. The tale we see is one that stays with a viewer long after they leave the space. Drawing in motion is what this presentation underlines, tying all the elements together in one mandala directly drawn on the wall by this practicing Buddhist. The drawings are airy, frequently working with and playing with a negative space.

As do many artists, Mallon creates narratives based on issues she faces in her life, and as a Buddhist she thinks often about one’s perception of reality, how we create reality, how we can make a better world by changing the mind. She is fond of questioning rather than responding, leaving spaces for stillness and freedom for the viewers. Mallon’s body of work does not develop from project to project, it is one big story that keeps changing and transforming itself. To an observer, it is more of a conversation that she continues having with herself by visual means, artistic practice presented as a gestational thought process. You do not know where it starts and where it ends; it is fluid and dynamic.

As a story, Wolf Tales also develops on multiple planes and in multiple temporal frameworks. It is not a fairy tale, but rather an artistic representation of ideas and feelings, thinking through the poem by Erich Fried, which has occupied a special place in Mallon’s life for many years. Out of all of these narratives and feelings, she weaves characters and stories in the way that fairy tales do. There are no solutions. It’s about what is happening with our lives and our emotions, and it is complex. In the seminal analysis of fairy tale structure that Vladimir Propp published in 1927, the author outlines seven main characteristics important for a fairy tale (Zaubermärchen ): miraculous helper, miraculous spouse, miraculous adversary, miraculous task, miraculous object, miraculous power or gift, and other miraculous motives. In our time we need to emphasize the importance of miraculous, which could be understood to mean harmonious, compassionate, human.

Mallon is not a research-driven artist, as what we see on the walls is transmitted (or unearthed?) through sitting still and reflecting upon dharma talks and her work as a resident artist at The Creative Center at Mount Sinai Hospital. Working with people who have limited capacities affects Mallon, bringing an existential degree to her contemplation of humanity, anger, attachment, and suffering. A native of Austria, she studied art therapy, but ultimately developed her own intuitive technique of drawing and sculpting in order to perfect what she needed to say. This self-taught quality and a certain remoteness from the official and often overtly commercial art system creates a space for honesty, deep engagement, and compassion in Mallon’s works. Being informed by the understanding of larger and more painful experiences influences one’s ability to look at life. Mallon’s life informs her works and vice versa. Even with her patients she tries to find the healthy part and work with it.

Miraculous is an element of the drawings around us. Sascha Mallon offers to bring each of us home, just as a wolf and a girl who are tied in an ambiguous, but ultimately symbiotic relationship are able to do. What is the alternative if we turn away instead of looking into each other’s faces? Compassion is an essential part of Mallon’s work, a quality that we see less and less of in the polarized society of today’s United States. For the artist, an enemy that is initially perceived on the outside turns out to be an enemy on the inside. In this story, the lines get blurred, become vague and nonessential: you don’t know any more if it’s describing a girl or a wolf. Yet the hope of the artist is that through her heroes we are able to move toward peace rather than confrontation.

—Nina Chkareuli-Mdivani is a Georgian-American curator, writer, and researcher living in New York.

This exhibition closes 5/25/24.