Falling Back in Time

And yet some things are still present and will always be.
On the weekend, I was confronted by an issue that followed me quite a while when I was younger. It was the period when I began to investigate the history of Vietnam, my country of origin.

I went to the PS1, a contemporary art museum of the Moma in Queens. There was an exhibition with works of 1969, the year of the space's opening. I went through the halls, which mostly presented political artwork, then current issues like the Cold War and the Black Power movement. I also passed by a piece that was called "Q: And babies? A: And Babies.".

It was a photo of an incident during the Vietnam war. On 16 March 1968, a group of US soldiers marched into a village. On the command of "Take care of these people!" the soldiers killed app. 500 people. They claimed to have shot Vietcongs, but there were no men of combat age, only women, elderly men and children. They didn't show a sign of resistence or provocation, nor were there any hints of military involvement of that little village. The men began to shoot around. Babies, elderly people and women were tortured and killed. Young girls were sexually abused. Their corps were found humilated.

The killings and humilations were only stopped by the inervention of US military helicopters that observed the dead civilians and threatened to shoot if the soldiers wouldn't stop. By then, only a dozen of the villagers could be saved.

In the course, the US military tried to cover the incidents up. Only in november 1969, more then a year later, the independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh succeeded to publish the full extent of the story - after being denied publication by most of the major newspapers.

The My Lai massacre was the beginning of the end of the war. More massacres came to light and the purpose and the means of the war were more cirtically questioned. The public sentiment turned against it given the revelation of its cruelty and hopelessness.

There was a trial on the massacre. The only man convicted was amnestied a couple of years later by the president himself. The journalist who revealed the events was honoured with the Pulitzer 30 years later. By that time, the war was long passed and the victims almost forgotten.


By the way, this was the notion to the poster in the Museum:

"This poster was conceived at a meeting between two matters of the Art Work Coalition and the Museum Executive Staff Committee [Moma] on november 25, 1969. The idea of a "co-sponsored" mass produced poster in condemnation of the My Lai massacre was supported by the Museum Senior Staff present at the meeting. The poster used Life photographer Ronald Haeberle's photograph superimposed with text from the transcript of the interview conducted by Mike Wallace of Paul Meadlo, one of the soldiers who participated in the massacre. Paper and printing were donated to the cause. The color plates were completed on december 18, and a color mock-up was presented to William S. Paley, President of the Board. He argued that the Museum withdraw its support of the poster. He did offer to bring the matter before the Board of Trustees during its next meeting. However, the AWC in the interest of time and with little optimism for a positive outcome released the poster without the Museum's sponsorship in the amount of 50 000 copies which were distributed freely."



This is how the campaign ended: The Art Workers Coalition demonstrating with the poster in front of Picasso's Guernica in the Moma.

"Say hi to forever"

Today my subway stopped. I ran late for JFK and missed my plane. When I came back home, my roommate told me a woman was run down by a train on the 6. Only a few stations from where I was when the traffic got stuck.

I later found out she was jumping after her handbag and didn't get off the rails in time. When the subway arrived, her head was squeezed between the train and the platform. A woman screamed "The head, the head!", a 12-year-old girl was witness to the scenario. I wonder how she will handle it.

Strange to say, this incident reminded me to a windy november night in Paris last year. A mile away from me, a girl of my age hung herself one night. She said a final 'hi' to forever after having failed to settle in life.

"Il n'y a pour l'homme que trois éléments: naitre, vivre et mourir. Il ne se sent pas naitre; il souffre à mourir et il oublie de vivre." (La Bruyère)

She must somehow have sensed, no, actually lived La Bruyère's last part. She went to search for the forgotten, said hi to all the small things on her way, but finally didn't succeed to really grasp life.

The woman didn't choose the end, the girl didn't make it to the beginning. Yet, both ceased in tragic irony.

The Last Poet

To be or not to be...

Last weekend, I watched "Hamlet" in The Paradise Factory, performed by The Organs of State. I never saw it being interpreted in such an abstract way before. It was carricated into a farce of a play, the 'tragedy' was put into a comedian contexte of performance. Still, I don't know whether to like it or not, it was defintely impressive, though. The dircetor obviously took the "time ( - and also the state - ) is out of joint" by its word. The actors switched genders, Hamlet, a petite blond girl and Ophelia her melancholic poet boy. Claudius's role would be quarreled and perpetually switched by the ensemble. The play was lifted into an existentialist sphere, ending with the actress Hamlet performing all characters of the final scene, and questioning the reality of the events and Hamlet's state of mind in an even more obscure condition. Illusive life. Or not.

Progress of a Day

Yes - I made it to the last performance before spring break! Although I expected more of the New York City Ballet, I enjoyed watching it quite a lot. As an European, it is funny to see people buying souvenirs in the breaks, just like eating popcorn in a theater play. Despite the European influence in New York, there are still cultural differences.



I went for a stroll in Central Park to get to the west side, afterwards. It snowed a lot the days before, and so the funny snow men people built were still there.



What I saw afterwards totally blew me away. When I entered the rotunda of the Guggenheim, a little girl asked me to follow her. She asked me "What is progress?". At first, I didn't know what to say, felt kind of shallow by the abrupt, unexpected question. But then I started by describing it as a process of ongoing development, intending to improve the initial situation, but often having ambiguous consequences. She picked up the words I said and kept on spinning a conversation as we climbed up the ramp, then passed me over to teenager. He as well, paraphrased fragments of my words and kept on "progressing" the conversation. Then he passed me to a man in the thirties who continued questioning my phrases. By arriving on top of the hall, I was accompanied by an elderly woman who told me about "her personal progress", her emacipation and the turning point in her life and left me questioning where my life would go. It was "This Progress" by the young Berliner artist Tino Seghal. And it left me absolutely perplex. I have to admit I do not understand very much of art, I basically only enjoy it. This was certainly not what I expected, though. It transcended the usual dimension of art by involving the viewer, enforcing a dialogue that leaves him confused, and by that mean, making him the artwork. Experiencing this was definitely a progress for me. It once more confronted me with essential questions of my own. And it highlighted a perfect New York saturday.