El Arbi Bouqdib 1947-2016

So now the plan is fixed! Who would have expected that suddenly everything would be moving so fast?? Elshan Ghasimi made a suggestion, I gratefully accepted: She wants to set 38 objects from the estate of El Arbi Bouqdib into music. She wants to translate them into her own subjective and beautiful language of Classical Persian Music. In dialogue with uncertain pasts.

The objects/souvenirs/relics – how should I call these memorial stones? – will be ’staged‘ by Michal Martychowiec. The objects, their symbolic qualities form a polyphonic chorus that speaks of Bouqdib’s life. As a curator working with such diverse artists as a Persian musician and Martychowiec, an intellectual interrogator of 20th-century art, it is my concern to bring these different modes, possibilities and qualities into a common form.

For this, however, we need a new concept … The idea of ​​the concert exhibition just popped into my head. After all, Ghasimi is giving concerts and is composing for objects. So, Concert-Exhibitions. Ephemeral and permanent …

Yes, it’s a huge question how a life can (and should!) be told. And I am happy (and a bit relieved even) that this long story of Bouqdib, his life, his time, his person and his work begin with music. After all, what could be freer as an approach? Almost like a dance and very volatile.

Our concern is the poetic reconstruction of the past. Truth and Fiction (Dichtung und Wahrheit) like good old Goethe said.

I am very happy to supervise and curate this project!

März 2018 (1397/1439 a.H.“)