Audio File, book, printed on vinyl canvas
2002
Curated by Greta Boldorini and Valentina Guttuso
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English Version [Introduction; biography; It was me. Diary 1900-1999]
Versione italiana [Introduzione; biografia; intervista; testo critico]
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A 365 day diary, told and lived in first person. The events, which are described and reported telegraphically, capture moments during the 21st century () , more or less important, more or less significant. The first person narrator is every time executioner and victim or spectator of the history, which looses its universal charachter achieving an individual dimension.
The diary’s original language is German, but there are several translated versions . The collection has been realized as a manuscript but the first time it has been exposed in an audio format in 2002, then in a book format in 2005 and finally in the wall version in 2006. Furthermore, in 2012 has been created the Iphone and Ipad application.
Biography
Daniela Comani was born in Bologna, she has lived in Berlin since 1989. Her collection focuses on symbols, social stereotypes and their representation in media.In 2011, she has exposed at the Biennale of Venice in the San Marino National Republic pavilion. Daniela Comani’s artworks are in the Mambo Museum in Bologna, the Seam Museum in Gerusalemn and the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin.
Furthermore Comani’s collection “Accoppiamenti giudiziosi” is available until the 16th of November at the New Moroni gallery in Milan.
It was me. Diary 1900-1999
January 1st. I founded the Communist Party of Germany in Berlin. January 2nd. Berlin. I was able to look into my Stasi files. January 3rd. Today I announced the foundation of the dictatorship in Rome. January 4th. I bought the first issue of the magazine Der Spiegel for 1 Reichsmark. January 5th. Today I am in the Théatre de Babylone in Paris to see the première of Samuel Beckett s piece ‘Waiting for Godot’, directed by Roger Blin. January 6th. In Rome today I opened ‘The casa dei bambini’ founded by Maria Montessori in the district of San Lorenzo. January 7th. At the end of a 50-day expedition I have reached the South Pole. January 8th. Memphis, USA. In a sound studio, I made a recording at my own cost: the single ‘That s All Right Mama’, which I intend to give to my mother for her birthday. January 9th. Tokyo. Following the death of my father I have become the new emperor of Japan. January 10th. I am in Berlin for the première of the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang. January 11th. I open the Berliner Ensemble at Schumannstraße in Berlin with the production ‘Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder’. January 12th. In Lagos I announce the capitulation of my independent republic Biafra. The 2 1/2 year war costs the lives of 2 million people, 2/3 of them died from malnutrition. January 13th. The Greens become a national party. I am a founding member. January 14th. At 7.20 I left from Berlin on the first trip of the Balkan Express. The trip via Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia to Constantinople is to take about 50 hours. January 15th. I have been made Queen of Denmark. January 16th. The production, sale and consumption of acoholic beverages are prohibited in the US. I spent all day pouring kegs of wine and spirits into the canal system. January 17th. Earthquakes in Kobe and Osaka, more than 5000 dead. I am still alive. January 18th. Grade III smog alarm in Germany: for the first time, motorized road traffic is blocked completely. I go for a walk on the freeway. January 19th. I went to vote. Today, women also were allowed to vote in Germany: the parties in the middle (SPD, Centre, German Democratic Party) receive 3/4 of the majority. January 20th. Here in Ronchamp, after three years of construction, I opened the church by Le Corbusier. January 21st. I died of a heart attack in Gorki. January 22nd. I have been accepted as the first female member of the Académie Française. January 23rd. In Paris, ‘Je vous salue, Marie’ by J. L. Godard started today. I was at the cinema: Maria is a filling station attendant, Josef a cab driver. January 24th. I presented the first Apple computer in the US: the Macintosh 128k. It has 128 KByte memory, a 9 inch monitor and a 16/32 bit microprocessor. January 25th. Luxor. I opened the grave of the Egyptian pharaon Tutenkhamon. January 26th. Today I renamed Petrograd Leningrad. January 27th. Poland, Auschwitz concentration camp. Soviet troops have freed us. January 28th. Cape Canaveral. The US space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take-off. All seven of us died. January 29th. At the Australian Open in Melbourne I won the semi-finals in three sets: 4:6, 7:5, 7:5. January 30th. New Delhi. I assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. January 31st. Paris. On the site where the market halls were torn down, I opened the Centre Pompidou. After 4 years of construction work one can now admire the six-floor building by the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. February 1st. Flood catastrophe on the North Sea coast. To me it is the greatest flood catastrophe since the Middle Ages. The Netherlands and England are affected worst. February 2nd. The first two copies of ‘Ulysses’ are finished. Sylvia Beach, the editor, has given me the first one for my birthday. She put the second copy in the window of her bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris, 12 Rue de l Odéon. February 3rd. Huntsville, Texas. I am condemned to death for double murder. Today I am to be executed with an injection of poison around 6 pm. February 4th. Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill and I meet in Jalta. The topic is the distribution of the world. February 5th. In Zurich I open the location Cabaret Voltaire, meeting place for the Dadaists. February 6th. Vietnam. On board a plane of the US air force I begin the ‘defoliation’ of the southern part of the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam by spraying herbicide. February 7th. I publish the novel ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’ in Berlin today. February 8th. Carson City, Nevada. I am condemned to death and will now be executed with cyanide hydrogen. February 9th. Port Arthur. I have begun war against the Russians. February 10th. At the construction site on Leninplatz I have finished taking down the statue of Lenin. There remains a hole in the middle of the square. The statue, out of red granite, is now located in a gravel pit in Müggelheim. February 11th. Capetown. I have been released after 27 years of prison. February 12th. I arrested the writer Aleksandr Solenicyn in Moscow. February 13th. After my bomb attacks the inner city of Dresden is completely destroyed. February 14th. Khomeini condemns me to death because of my book. Editors and other people responsible for the publishing of the book are also threatened. February 15th. The first part of the Berlin train network under and above ground was inaugurated by me: Bhf. Warschauer Straße – Zoologischer Garten, a further section leads to Potsdamer Platz. February 16th. Havana. I have taken over the office of the premier, which means the end of the dictatorial Batista regime. February 17th. I began the investigation ‘Mani pulite’ at the Milan court today. February 18th. “Do you want total war?” “Yes!” Total excitement and enthusiasm at my speech in the Sportpalast in Berlin. February 19th. Together with some British women s rights activists I blast the country house of the British Lord Chancellor. February 20th. London. I took my life tonight. First I tried with an overdose of pills (150 antidepressants and 50 sleeping pills) but was saved in King s College hospital, where I hung myself 2 days later in the toilets in the middle of the night. February 21st. New York. I murdered Malcolm X during a speech in Harlem. February 22nd. I executed the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl. February 23rd. Edinburgh. I cloned a sheep at the Roslin Institute: Dolly. February 24th. I presented ‘the 25 point program’ to the German Workers Party. February 25th. Unbloody putsch in the Philippines: I overthrew the president Ferdinando E. Marcos. February 26th. I am reading the daily newspaper Il Popolo: Giulio Andreotti (prime minister and president of the committee for film revision) accuses the director Vittorio De Sica of emphasizing only the negative sides of Italy in his film ‘Umberto D.’. February 27th. South Dakota. With 200 Indians I seize Wounded Knee with the purpose of claiming our rights. February 28th. Live on TV: I free Kuwait. The Gulf War ends. February 29th. In Sydney, I swim the 100m freestyle in 58,9 sec. World record. March 1st. At the police headquarters in Dresden I am the first in Germany to introduce the identification of suspects by means of fingerprints. March 2nd. My film ‘King Kong’ has its première at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. March 3rd. I open my first Body Shop in Brighton, Kensington Garden Street No. 22, selling home-made natural cosmetics for skin and hair. In order to attract the attention of pedestrians to the store, I have sprayed perfume on the façade and the street. March 4th. Serious explosion in the harbour of the city of Havanna: The reason for the accident is my French trade ship La Coubre, which was transporting weapons and explosives out of Belgium. March 5th. Begin of my contract banning atomic weapons, which has been signed by the US, the USSR and the UK. March 6th. I shot at Larry Flynt, who is in Georgia today because of a lawsuit in Lawrenceville. He is badly wounded. March 7th. In Vienna today we presented my automobile that turns into a motor boat in the water: 4 cylinders, maximum speed on the road 75 km/h, 20 km/h in the water. March 8th. International women s day. In all of Germany I invited female workers and mothers to take part in the 9th public women s assemblies for female suffrage. March 9th. Paris. Today I saw the film ‘Children of Paradise’ by Marcel Carné. March 10th. Beijing. I forbid the acquisition and sale of human beings. This ends slavery in China. March 11th. Tschernenko died in Moscow today. Following his death I have become secretary general of the party. March 12th. India. In Ahmedabad I began the salt march. March 13th. In Japan, from today on my 53,85 km underwater tunnel connects the main island Honshu with the island Hokkaido. March 14th. Austria. I died of multifunctional organ failure because of long-term poisoning with anabolica. March 15th. Italy, Segrate. I find a corpse next to a fence post and immediately inform the police. The man died due to the detonation of an explosive charge he was intending to fasten to the post. His identification card states the name Vincenzo Maggioni. Only later will the police find out the real identity of the deceased: He was the publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. March 16th. Today at 9.15 in the Via Fani in Rome I abducted Aldo Moro and shot his 5 bodyguards. March 17th. I have been elected prime minister of Israel. March 18th. Military coup in Cambodia: I have deposed the head of state Prince Norodom Sihanuk. March 19th. In Erfurt I met the German president Willy Brandt and the prime minister of the GDR Willi Stoph. March 20th. Tokyo. Around 8 o clock in the morning I carried out 5 sarin poison gas attacks in 5 different underground trains. 12 people died, thousands suffered damage to their health. March 21st. Sharpeville, South Africa. I shoot at 20 000 people of color taking part in a demonstration. I kill 71 people and injure further 180. Western journalists present at the demonstration confirm that no provocation had come from the side of the demonstrators. March 22nd. Today I flew Paris – Brussels with the first international airline: Once a week a plane flies from Brussels to Paris in three hours, the flight costs 365 francs. March 23rd. On the island of Crete I begin the excavation of the buried city Knossos, home of King Minos. March 24th. Off the coast of Alaska my Esso oil tanker Exxon Valdez hits a reef and loses 44 000 tons of unrefined oil. The environmental catastrophe causes the death of many animals. March 25th. Bombs over Serbia. I continue the air raids I began. March 26th. Due to the Liberian oil tanker Torrey Canyon, which I am in charge of, colliding with a reef, 118 000 tons of unrefined oil leak off the British coast. March 27th. Over Tenerife two jumbo jets collide. 575 people die, 70 survive, so do I. March 28th. Monk s House. I put on my coat, take my walking stick and leave through the garden. I run to the river. On the bank I fill heavy stones in my coat pocket and walk into the water. I leave my walking stick lying by the riverside. March 29th. Today I bought the Italian daily newspaper il Manifesto. The title page shows only a huge face, the eyes blocked by a black censure strip. The sole title is “Vince il peggiore”, the worse one wins. The topic is the results of the elections, Silvio Berlusconi has won with a right-wing coalition. March 30th. London. At Christie s I bought Van Gogh s picture ‘Sunflowers’ for 39,9 Million USD. March 31st. In Moscow today I sign the protocol to dissolve the Warsaw pact. This ends the division of the world in two hostile blocks. April 1st. Berlin. In the UFA palace the film ‘Der blaue Engel’ by Josef von Sternberg has its première. After the show I go to Hollywood. April 2nd. I occupy the British colony Falkland Islands with parachute troops. April 3rd. I set two department stores in Frankfurt am Main aflame to protest against the political and social state of West Germany. April 4th. USA, Memphis, Tennessee. At 6 pm I shoot at Martin Luther King, who is standing on the balcony of the motel Lorraine. He dies in hospital an hour after the attack. April 5th. France. In the Nouvel Observateur I too declare publicly: “We have aborted!”. April 6th. New York. I am present at the première of the film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ by Stanley Kubrick. April 7th. I capture the city Durrës in Albania with my troops. April 8th. After 3 years of restauration work I reopen the Sixtine Chapel. The Japanese TV company Nippon Television financially supported the repairs with 6 billion Italian lire. April 9th. The biggest eruption of Mount Vesuvius since the fall of Pompeii. Masses of lava pour down on surrounding villages. Several hundred people die, but not I. April 10th. At the parliament elections in Japan I allow women to vote for the first time. April 11th. Berlin, Kurfürstendamm. I have been severely wounded by three shots. I am taken to hospital immediately. My shoes and bicycle remain lying on the street. Later the police arrest Josef Erwin Bachmann, a 23-year-old right-wing fanatic from Munich. April 12th. I am the first person in space. I circle the earth on the spaceship Vostok I. April 13th. USA. I am sentenced to 35 years in prison because of a bank robbery. April 14th. I have finished the agricultural collectivization in the GDR. April 15th. A catastrophe occurs at the Hillsborough stadium: The football cup semi-finals FC Liverpool vs. Nottingham are completely sold out, 54 000 spectators are in the stadium, when suddenly I pour in with 4000 additional fans. 95 people are squashed to death, more than 170 are injured. The semi-finals are interrupted, the playing grounds serve as a makeshift hospital. April 16th. An American female pilot, I cross the Channel with my airplane. April 17th. Power switch in Cambodia: After three months of siege, the troops of the Red Khmer take the capital under my leadership. April 18th. Earthquake in San Fransisco. Today at 5 in the morning the first quake was felt (8,3), stronger ones followed, causing a fire that still has not been able to be put out. I happen to be in the city, open the window of my hotel room and test my voice. April 19th. Terror attack in Oklahoma City: A nine-floor office building is destroyed by my car bomb: 167 dead. April 20th. Today is my birthday. I am the guest of honor at the UFA palace near the zoo, where the film about the Olympic Games in Berlin by Leni Riefenstahl is being shown for the first time. April 21st. I, at the head of the party L’Ulivo, win the elections in Italy. April 22nd. Petersburg. I bought the first issue of Pravda for 2 kopeks. April 23rd. In Berlin I opened the Palace of the Republic, seat of the People s Chamber of the German Democratic Republic. April 24th. Today my book ‘The Ego and the Id’ came out. April 25th. Protest against the CASTOR transport by train to Gorleben. It is a container for burned-out, highly radioactive fuel elements from the atomic power plant Philippsburg in Baden-Württemberg. I try to prevent the transport to the temporary storage site at Gorleben in Lower Saxony. April 26th. In the atomic power plant in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl tonight at 1:24 the reactor 4 exploded. I drank a glass of vodka to decontaminate the organism. April 27th. Before the European parliament in Strasbourg I declare my support of total and controlled disarmament and explain: We will never have peace in the shadow of rockets. April 28th. New York. Constance Collier is dead. The funeral in the chapel at the Universal Funeral Home in Lexington Avenue has already begun. Gently and quietly I too enter with Marilyn Monroe and Truman Capote. April 29th. I have hung up the corpses of Benito Mussolini and his lover Claretta Petacci on the Piazzale Loreto in Milano for everyone to see, heads down. April 30th. Hamburg, tennis tournament on the Rothenbaum, quarter finals. During a change of sides a mentally confused man stabs me in the right shoulder with a knife. May 1st. My first feature film ‘A Trip to the Moon’ is shown. May 2nd. I present my ‘Suprematist Manifesto’. May 3rd. Victory for the conservatives at the elections in the House of Commons: I become the British Prime Minister. May 4th. Today it is very misty in Superga near Torino: my airplane brushes a church tower and crashes immediately. It was the return flight of the football team FC Torino after losing a game in Lisbon. Among the 31 dead are 18 players, 5 attendants, 2 trainers. May 5th. Near Adriano on the island of Sicily, Eurelius, my first solar power plant in Europe, supplies electricity to the local network for the first time. May 6th. I have opened the 52 km Eurotunnel under the Channel. May 7th. Mercedes Benz announces its upcoming fusion with my company. May 8th. Excerpt from my speech before the Lower House of the German Parliament on the Day of Liberation: “Guilt, like innocence, is not collective, but personal”. May 9th. Stuttgart, Stammheim. I am found hung in my cell. May 10th. Today I am at the book burning. On the Opernplatz in Berlin, around 10 000 hundredweights of books succumb to the flames, cleansing the libraries of ‘ungerman’ writings. May 11th. At 8 pm in the Garibaldi street in Buenos Aires I kidnapped Adolf Eichmann, who had been hiding under the false name of Ricardo Klement. May 12th. Berlin. I have invented the computer Zuse Z3. May 13th. On St Peter’s Square, Pope John Paul II has been badly hurt by my shot in the abdomen. May 14th. In Tel Aviv I proclaimed the state of Israel. May 15th. The federal court in New York decided that my oil company has to be dissolved into a trust. The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, my proprietary company, controls around two thirds of the US refinement business. May 16th. Today I swam for about an hour with my bodyguards in the river Yangtse. I am 72 years old today. May 17th. USA. I declare the racial segregation in public schools to be against the constitution. May 18th. US state of Washington. The volcano Mt. St. Helens erupts. The eruption spews ash and bits of stone 20 km in the air. A seventh of the height of the mountain is blasted away by the forceful explosion. 24 people die. I felt the shock waves from the explosion 320 km away. May 19th. Today I open the world exhibition in Barcelona. The German pavillion by Mies van der Rohe is a flat building out of steel, green glass, yellow onyx and an open construction with free standing walls, a concept of ‘flowing space’. It attracts a good deal of attention among the public. May 20th. I just read the article “How stupid they are!” by Palmiro Togliatti in the daily newspaper L’Unità. He attacks Summer Welles, the former state secretary of the US, because of his statements about the Italian communists. May 21st. I fly over the Atlantic in 33 hours and 29 minutes with my airplane Spirit of St. Louis, nonstop solo from New York to Paris. May 22nd. I introduced daylight saving time in Italy today. May 23rd. Palermo. In an attempt to assassinate the Sicilian judge Giovanni Falcone, I mine a section of the freeway. Giovanni Falcone, his wife, the judge Francesca Morvillo, and the bodyguards are killed in the car on the way from the airport into the city. May 24th. My warship Bismarck sinks the British cruiser Hood in the Atlantic. May 25th. In Finland, the new parliament assembles, including 19 women, among them me. May 26th. I dine with Buffalo Bill and his troupe in the Vienna Prater. May 27th. Paris. I am at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier for the première of Sartre’s piece No Exit. May 28th. Today I founded Amnesty International in London. May 29th. I am the first to have conquered Mount Everest clear to the top at a height of 8848m. May 30th. Leipzig. I destroy an old church on the Karl Marx square which had survived the war, as it doesn’t fit into the concept of the socialist city planning. May 31st. I find the corpse of Rosa Luxemburg in the Landwehrkanal, about four months after her death. June 1st. In Berlin from today on we are obliged to do clean-up work among the rubble. June 2nd. I am killed by shots from the police at a demonstration in West Berlin. June 3rd. New York. Valerie Solanas shoots at me with a Beretta 32. I am badly hurt and taken to hospital. June 4th. Beijing, Tiananmen Square. In protest, I stand in the tank s way. June 5th. My film ‘Dead Man’ is running at the film festival in Cannes. June 6th. I officially accept the job of implementing the project Grameen Bank in Tangail. June 7th. With Israeli fighter jets I destroy the Iraqui atomic reactor site Tazum near Baghdad shortly before its completion. June 8th. Cologne. In the fight to be number one in middle weight I knock the referee Max Pippow. June 9th. I won the 28th Giro d’Italia. June 10th. I published the first color photographs in the magazine L’Illustration. June 11th. In West Germany I have paragraph 175 of the penal code invalidated. June 12th. I (after having disappeared in the GDR under the false name Eva-Maria Schnell) was arrested today in Magdeburg. June 13th. My novel 1984 is awarded the title ‘Book of the Year’ in the US today. June 14th. My film ‘Le diable probablement’ is being shown at the cinema Club 13 in Paris. June 15th. A porn diva, I was elected by the Italian party Partito Radicale and have been given a seat in parliament. June 16th. I have started on a flight around the world with the spaceship Vostok 6 as the first female cosmonaut. June 17th. Berlin. The workers protests in the Stalinallee are brutally fought down by my tanks. June 18th. London. My corpse is found under Blackfriars Bridge. June 19th. Germany. Currency reform in the western occupation zones. The Reichsmark loses its value, I replace it with the German Mark. June 20th. USA. I have been sentenced to death because of nuclear spying and am executed on the electric chair. June 21st. We, 250 000 people, chiefly women, gather in Hyde Park in London to take part in the demonstration of the women s organization Women s Social and Political Union. June 22nd. I attend the World Championship football game in the Volkspark stadium in Hamburg: The German Democratic Republic beats West Germany 1:0. June 23rd. I have been arrested. Weeks before, the police found body parts of around 20 people in the Leine near Hannover and started looking for the culprit. June 24th. Accompanied by camera man Carl-Axel Söderström, I arrive in Berlin. I have driven my car, an Adler Standard, around the world for the last 2 years and 1 month, passing through 23 countries, 49 244 km in total. June 25th. I have become head of the government in Turkey. June 26th. New York. I resisted repression by the police at the Stonewall Bar. A severe street fight takes place. June 27th. In retaliation against plans of assasination I start a rocket attack on the Iraqi capital Baghdad. June 28th. Las Vegas. In a boxing fight I bite off a piece of Evander Holyfield s right ear. The wound is 1,5 cm wide. June 29th. I have been killed in a car accident in Louisiana. June 30th. The last day of the East German Mark. From tomorrow on, the German Mark will be introduced in the German Democratic Republic as well. With my last notes I bought a pipe on the Schönhauser Allee. July 1st. After 156 years I gave Hong Kong back to China. July 2nd. I presented the Fiat model 500. The small automobile reaches 85 km/h. July 3rd. The first color television broadcast takes place in my Baird Studios in London. July 4th. My space probe Pathfinder lands on Mars. July 5th. 10th Berlin Film Festival: I won the prize for best director for my film ‘Breathless’. July 6th. Berlin. Following lengthy preparations, I carry out my project ‘Wrapped Reichstag’. July 7th. For the 9th time I win the tounament in Wimbledon with the final game against Zina Garrison. July 8th. In a military briefing I decide to attack and destroy the Soviet capital Moscow. July 9th. Straßlach near Munich. I kill the Siemens manager Karl Heinz Beckurts and his driver in a bomb attack. July 10th. Auckland. With a bomb attack I destroy the ship Rainbow Warrior, which belongs to the environmental activist organization Greenpeace, in order to prevent the ship proceeding to the Mururoa Atoll, the French test area for nuclear weapons. July 11th. Somewhere in the world the five billionth human being is born. In a symbolic act I congratulate a Yugoslav mother in a hospital in Zagreb. July 12th. This morning I called Melina Mercouri in New York: “Ms. Mercouri, the Greek interior minister Pattakos has declared you an enemy of the people. What do you think of this?” Melina Mercouri answered: “I was born a Greek and will die a Greek. Pattakos was born a fascist and will die a fascist”. July 13th. I excommunicated the communists. The Vatican decided that members and sympathizers of the Communist party are to be excluded from the Catholic church. July 14th. New York. At 9:34 pm all the lights go out, all the trains and undergrounds stop, all the elevators get stuck. Two important power plants that provide the city with electricity have been hit by lightning. I repair them.July 15th. I open the Mont Blanc tunnel. July 16th. Los Alamos 60 km northwest of Santa Fe in the state of New Mexico I set off the first atom bomb for test purposes. July 17th. In Melilla, Spain, I begin the civil war. July 18th. Day of German Art. I inaugurate the exhibition ‘Degenerate Art’. July 19th. Paris. During the World Exhibition I opened the first length of the underground train between Porte Maillot and Porte de Vincennes. July 20th. Rastenburg, East Prussia. My attempt to assassinate Hitler fails. July 21st. I am the first person to set foot on the moon. July 22nd. My bomb attack destroys the headquarters of the British mandate troops in Palestine, accommodated in the hotel King David. 91 people die, more than 200 are severely wounded. I had set milk pails filled with dynamite in the cellar of the building. July 23rd. Ford sells their first automobile. I bought the model A for 950 dollars. July 24th. In Fosso Reale near Livorno three stone heads are fished out of the river. Italian art historians agree that the heads are sculptures by Amedeo Modigliani. It was, however, a joke of mine: I had faked the heads using a Black and Decker and thrown them in the river. July 25th. My Italian ship Andrea Doria collides in the mist with the Swedish ship Stockholm and sinks off the American coast. July 26th. Oldham, UK. My first test tube baby is born: Louise. July 27th. On the island of Java in Indonesia a Cholera epidemic breaks out. I catch it. July 28th. I declare war on Serbia. July 29th. The Italian king Umberto I is assassinated by me in Monza. July 30th. Civil war in Liberia. In a refugee camp of the international Red Cross in Monrovia I kill 600 people (mostly women and children). July 31st. In the encyclical ‘Humanae vitae’ I say no to the contraceptive pill. August 1st. In Berlin I open the Summer Olympics. August 2nd. Bologna. Bomb attack at the main railway station. A bomb with 20 kg of explosives hidden in a suitcase goes off. 85 people die, more than 200 are severely wounded. I survive. August 3rd. In Göteburg at the Swedish automobile manufacturing company Volvo, I proclaim the switch from conveyor belt production to teamwork. August 4th. In Amsterdam today the hide-out of the Frank family is discovered. I denounced them. August 5th. I find Marilyn Monroe dead on her bed. She died of an overdose of sleeping pills. August 6th. I drop the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city Hiroshima. August 7th. I lift the border controls on the coast of Cuba. Thousands of people flee to the US. August 8th. I am on a freight ship with 10 000 Albanians and try to land at Bari. August 9th. I drop the second atomic bomb on the Japanese city Nagasaki. August 10th. I succeed in escaping from the Geneva jail Champ Dollon. August 11th. Solar eclipse in Europe. I stare into the sun without protective glasses. August 12th. Oklahoma. Sentenced to death, I try to kill myself today. I am taken to the hospital and saved by pumping my stomach. Back in prison I am executed with a poison injection. August 13th. I begin the construction of the Berlin wall, at first using barbed wire divisions. August 14th. Bridgeport. I manage to fly 900 m at a height of 12 m in my home-made airplane. August 15th. Today I am found dead in my Hamburg apartment. My 40 square metre apartment accommodates, among other things, 500 used stockings, 400 dresses and skirts, appr. 10 000 used tissues, 350 bottles of perfume, 1200 empty bottles of beer and wine, 3 broken TV sets, 2 radios and 3000 old newspapers. 250 trash sacks are filled. August 16th. Rock festival in Woodstock. Despite the rain I take part in the open air concert. Performing, among others, are Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. August 17th. Danzig. At the Lenin dockyard 17 000 workers, the electrician Lech Walesa and I continue to strike. August 18th. From today on I can buy the contraception pill Enovid produced by the American company Searle and Co in the US. August 19th. In Moscow, the first Trotskyite show trial begins. The 16 defendants are claimed to be followers of the former revolutionary leader Leo Trotsky, now living in exile. As such, they stand in opposition to my idea of ‘socialism in one country’. The purpose of the show trial is to quench any criticism of my role as a leader. August 20th. My tanks occupy Prague. This brutally ends the ‘Prague Spring’. August 21st. I stole the painting ‘Mona Lisa’ by Leonardo da Vinci out of the Louvre. August 22nd. I throw stones and molotow cocktails at a home for asylum seekers. I am pleased at the acclamation of the neighbors and the discretion of the police. August 23rd. Boston, Massachusetts. In spite of an unproven charge and world wide protests, I am executed on the electric chair for alleged murder with robbery. August 24th. I inaugurated Erich Mendelsohn s Einstein Tower in Potsdam. August 25th. My film ‘Rasho-mon’ opens in Japanese cinemas. August 26th. I found the writer Cesare Pavese with an overdose of sleeping pills in a hotel room in Torino, dead. August 27th. I declare war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire. August 28th. Washington. Martin Luther King gives his speech ‘I have a dream’. I march for the implementation of civil rights. August 29th. War trade fair. My products are shown at the Leipzig trade fair. They are made of ersatz materials, e.g. soles out of paper. (Brass, rubber, cloth and aluminium are reserved for war use.) August 30th. Hamburg. Jil Sander and I sign a contract together: I buy 75% of Sander shares. August 31st. Lady Diana and her partner are killed in Paris in a car accident. I only wanted to take a picture. September 1st. Danzig, 5 am. The invasion of my troops in Poland triggers World War II.September 2nd. I win the 100m race at the Olympic Games in Rome. 11 sec.: world record. The Süddeutsche Zeitung writes, a day later: “Now we have got to the point where women are running men s times”. September 3rd. My wife and I are the victims of a murder assault by the Mafia in the Via Carini in Palermo. September 4th. Santiago de Chile: I become president. I win the elections with the support of socialists and communists. September 5th. Hans Martin Schleyer has been kidnapped by me in Cologne. September 6th. I renamed Leningrad St. Petersburg. September 7th. Rio Grande, Bolivia. I find the corpse of Tamara Bunke. Without hair and eyes she is hardly recognizable, but I still know she is Tanja la Guerrillera. September 8th. In Berlin the retreat of my troops begins. September 9th. In Pyongyang I proclaim the formation of the Democratic People s Republic of Korea. September 10th. Flushing Meadow. I win the US Open and thus secure the Grand Slam. September 11th. Military putsch in Santiago de Chile. A rightist Junta under my leadership overthrows the socialist government. The president Salvador Allende is arrested and dies during the putsch. September 12th. I prevail and free Belgrade. By doing so, I become the single leader of the Yugoslav resistance movement. September 13th. Washington. Israel’s Premier Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yassir Arafat shake hands before my eyes. Israel concedes self-administration to the Palestinians in the Gaza strip and Jericho. September 14th. Nice. I die in a car accident. I suffocate because of my long red scarf, which gets caught on a wheel of my Bugatti. September 15th. In Berlin I open the New National Gallery, designed by Mies van der Rohe. September 16th. I flee from the German Democratic Republic to West Germany. During the night I cross the border to Bavaria on board a hot air balloon I secretly built myself. September 17th. In the town Hoyerswerda in Saxony, I raid Vietnamese street peddlers. September 18th. My Christian militias kill more than 1000 Palestinians in the refugee camps Sabra and Sahtila before the eyes of Israeli occupation forces.September 19th. From today on I have to wear a ‘6-pointed yellow star’ on the left side of my clothing. September 20th. In Italy the so-called ‘Merlin law’ comes into effect. Brothels are abolished. I am close to ruin. September 21st. My colony Malta becomes an independent state. September 22nd. Baghdad. The attack of Iranian oil fields by my troops causes the begin of the Gulf War. September 23rd. Stockholm. My film ‘The Silence’ is shown for the first time. September 24th. Rome. I attend the presentation of my film ‘Roma, città aperta’. September 25th. Visiting Berlin, I am ceremoniously welcomed by Adolf Hitler. September 26th. Earthquake in Italy in the regions of Umbria and the Marche. Eleven people die, 40000 become homeless. Me too. Numerous churches and statues are damaged. September 27th. I take my life in Port Bou on the border between Spain and France. September 28th. On the day of my 26th birthday I try to kill myself with an overdose of sleeping pills. September 29th. The first issue of the magazine Der Dada comes out and costs 50 Pfennig. Our protests are aimed against bourgeois culture. September 30th. Zurich. I attend the première of the first exile program of Erika Mann’s political cabaret Die Pfeffermühle. October 1st. Beijing. At a mass demonstration in front of the emperor’s palace I proclaim the People’s Republic of China. October 2nd. New York. I am arrested for owning 50 kg of Heroin. October 3rd. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed Yugoslavia by me. October 4th. Moscow. Troops true to the regime end the putsch launched by the opponents of the reforms. October 5th. My troops continue preparations for the colonial war in Abessinia, marching into the city of Adigrat today. October 6th. I decide to separate the island of Crete (the autonomous Osmanian province) from Turkey and join it with Greece. October 7th. I proclaim the German Democratic Republic in Berlin. October 8th. I am in Bologna. In the gallery Studio g7 the performance ‘Relation in Time’ by Marina Abramovic and Ulay takes place today. The two artists sit back to back with their hair tied together for hours. October 9th. I am shot in Bolivia. October 10th. I storm the secretaries office at the art academy in Dusseldorf in order to immatriculate 70 students who failed the entry exam. October 11th. I recieved a copy of the book ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf which was published today by the Hogart Press. October 12th. New York. The first three-dimensional film is shown. I can see the 3D-effect with the help of special glasses. October 13th. I have arrested the women s rights activist Angela Davis. October 14th. Marseille. I open the housing complex Unité d Habitation by Le Corbusier. October 15th. Vincennes. I am shot at 6.15 in the morning by a French execution squad. I was working as a spy for the German Intelligence Agency. I decline to have my eyes covered and am hit by 12 shots. October 16th. The Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla is elected pope. For the first time in 456 years I don t elect an Italian. October 17th. I give my last speech to the ‘descamisados’. October 18th. Stuttgart-Stammheim. I found Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe dead in their cells. October 19th. I find Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian dead in their house in Bonn. Presumably he shot her with a pistol and then took his own life.October 20th. I declare the Irish Republican Army to be illegal. October 21st. I opened the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum in New York. It is the last building of the late architect Frank Lloyd Wright. October 22nd. I am awarded the nobel prize for literature. I don t accept the honor. October 23rd. Hungary. Following a mass demonstration for democratic freedom, the armed popular resistance against my governing system begins. October 24th. Chicago. I am arrested by the FBI for cheating on taxes. October 25th. ‘Black Friday’ at the New York stock exchange. Again I am on the verge of ruin. October 26th. Israels prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Jordanian prime minister Abdel Salam sign my peace treaty.October 27th. China. In the southern Chinese province Jiangxi the ‘Long March’ begins, led by me. October 28th. I am made EU commissioner by the Italian government. October 29th. My troops attack Egyptian positions on the Sinai peninsula. This widens the conflict around the Suez canal. October 30th. At the age of 32 I become world champion again, winning against George Foreman, seven years my junior. October 31st. Delhi. I am murdered with 22 shots by 2 of my bodyguards. November 1st. Ostia near Rome. Tonight I am first beat up, then run over by a car and murdered. November 2nd I support the founding of a Jewish state in Palestina. November 3rd. I read about the death of “comrade Tamara Bunke” in an obituary in the newspaper Neues Deutschland: “She dedicated and sacrificed her young life to the revolutionary battle for freedom and independence of the people of Latin America”.November 4th. Floods in Florence. November 5th. Washington. I occupy the National Office for Indian Affairs in protest against contracts broken by the whites. November 6th. My first mission for Greenpeace. Voyage to the Aleut islands to protest against US atom bomb experiments. November 7th. I attend the CDU party gathering in Berlin: 29-year-old Beate Klarsfeld slaps chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger to make a statement about his Nazi past. November 8th. In the Munich Bürgerbräukeller my assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler fails. The bomb explodes shortly after Hitler has left the place. 7 people die, 63 are injured. I, having constructed and planted the bomb, am arrested shortly afterwards. November 9th. Late in the evening I open the borders of the German Democratic Republic to West Berlin. November 10th. I have deported 35 000 Jews from Berlin to the concentration camps Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. November 11th. The first World War is ended by my signing a cease-fire agreement with France. November 12th. In San Fransisco I inaugurated the Golden Gate Bridge, after 4 years of construction. The bridge is 67m high and 2,7 km long. November 13th. A series of floods in eastern Pakistan costs the lives of over 300 000 people, but not mine. November 14th. New York. I attend the première of the film ‘Morocco’ with Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper. November 15th. Germany. I am elected chancellor for the fifth time. November 16th. Islamabad. I win the parliament elections in Pakistan. I am the first woman to be elected as the head of an Islamic state. November 17th. I inaugurated the Europe bridge. It is 815 metres long and connects Austria and Italy. November 18th. New York. I meet On Kawara at the movie ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ at the Charles Theatre on 8th Ave. November 19th. Jonestown. Over 900 members (including 100 children) of the sect People s Temple kill themselves in the Guayana jungle. I, the leader of the sect, ordered the mass suicide over loudspeakers. The members of the sect were to drink lemonade poisoned with cyanide and did. November 20th. I died. This ends the 40-year dictatorship in Spain. November 21st. I delivered SS officer Erich Priebke, responsible for the Italian massacre at Fosse Ardeatine near Rome, to Italy. He had disappeared in Argentinia. November 22nd. I shot US president John F. Kennedy in his car on Elm Street in Dallas. He died 30 minutes later at Parkland Memorial Hospital. November 23rd. I bought the book ‘Dr. Schiwago’ by Boris Pasternak, fresh in print today. The Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli is able to publish the book, which was declined in the Soviet Union.November 24th. My loss against the Central Powers Germany, Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria on the Amselfeld in southwestern Serbia confirms the occupation of Serbia. November 25th. Due to the oil crisis, driving is prohibited in West Germany. I want to move the Western countries toward putting pressure on Israel to give up occupied territories. November 26th. I watch the film ‘Casablanca’, directed by Michael Curtiz, featuring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, at the Hollywood Theatre in New York. November 27th. I withdraw the sleeping medication Contergan from the market, as it causes deformities in newborn children. November 28th. Teheran. For the first time, the heads of state Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and I meet. Among other things, we discuss the allotment of the German Reich after the end of the war. November 29th. Belgrade. With no opposition I decided to abolish the monarchy and proclaimed the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Marshall Josip Tito becomes prime minister. November 30th. The board speaker of the Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen, is killed by my bomb attack in Bad Homburg. December 1st. I buy the first issue of Playboy. Marilyn Monroe is the first covergirl. December 2nd. Boston, Massachusetts. After inventing a razor with exchangeable blades I start the Gillette Razor Company. December 3rd. In the Indian city Bhopal, more than 3 000 people die following a poisonous explosion in my US factory Union Carbide. December 4th. Opening day of the Bauhaus school building in Dessau. The founders of Bauhaus are present: among others, Wassily and Nina Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Georg Muche, Walter Gropius and I. December 5th. I meet Chantal Akerman, who is filming ‘News from Home’ in New York with Babette Mangolte behind the camera. December 6th. I declare Ireland a free state, except for the province Ulster. December 7th. Warsaw. During a visit to the memorial for the victims of the Warsaw ghetto I kneel down for a commemorative minute. December 8th. New York. I shot John Lennon. December 9th. I am elected president of Switzerland. December 10th. Stockholm. I am awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. December 11th. I declare war on the USA. December 12th. Saint John, Canada. With an apparatus I built myself, I recieve the first radio signals sent across the northern Atlantic. December 13th. Warsaw. I declare a state of emergency throughout Poland. A military board takes over power under my leadership. The union Solidarnosç is forbidden.December 14th. In Paris, the presidents of Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina sign the Dayton agreement. The Balkan war ends with my peace contract. December 15th. Jerusalem. Death sentence for me. December 16th. Today I closed the ‘Maxi trial’ against the Mafia in Palermo. 342 defendants have been condemned. December 17th. North Carolina, USA. I succeed in carrying out the first steerable motorized flight: 35 m in 12 sec. December 18th. I opened the Pergamon museum in Berlin on the Museumsinsel. December 19th. Hannover. I am sentenced to death for 27 murders. December 20th. The last commander of the concentration camp Auschwitz, Richard Baer, is arrested in Dassendorf near Hamburg. As I arrest him, he says to me: “I was an officer, please treat me accordingly”. December 21st. After 69 years the Soviet Union has ceased to exist. I am in Alma-Ata, the capital of Kasachstan. 11 of 15 Soviet republics join together as a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). December 22nd. Bukarest. The celebration organized in my honor turns into a massive protest demonstration. I flee by helicopter. December 23rd. According to my report, 250 000 children have been killed and 750 000 wounded up to now in the Vietnam war. December 24th. I declare Lybias independence. December 25th. Moscow. I step back as Soviet president. December 26th. Sydney. I become world champion in boxing. December 27th. Teheran. I change the official state name from Persia to Iran. December 28th. An earthquake almost completely destroys the cities Messina and Reggio Calabria. More than 100 000 people die. So do I.December 29th. I am elected president of Czechoslovakia. December 30th. Moscow. At the first All-Union Congress of Soviets I decide to found the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR). December 31st. During a New Year s party I flee Cuba. Thus ends my regime.
–
Un diario di 366 giorni, raccontato e vissuto in prima persona. Gli eventi descritti e riportati telegraficamente sono momenti più o meno importanti, più o meno significativi della storia del ventesimo secolo. L’io narrante risulta essere di volta in volta carnefice, vittima o spettatore della Storia, che perde però il suo carattere di universalità per trasformarsi in storia individuale.
La lingua originale dell’opera è il tedesco ma esistono versioni in molte altre lingue. Il lavoro è stato realizzato sotto forma di manoscritto ma il primo supporto per esporlo è stato quello audio del 2002 al quale sono seguiti il libro nel 2005 e la versione a parete del 2006. Nel 2012 è uscita anche la applicazione per Iphone e Ipad.
Biografia
Daniela Comani è nata a Bologna e vive a Berlino dal 1989. Il suo lavoro si concentra sui simboli, sugli stereotipi sociali e sulla loro rappresentazione nei media. Nel 2011 ha partecipato alla Biennale di Venezia, nel padiglione della Repubblica Nazionale di San Marino. Le sue opere sono esposte nelle collezioni del Mambo di Bologna, nel Museo on the Seam di Gerusalemme e nelKupferstichkabinett di Berlino.
L’artista espone fino al 16 novembre alla nuova Galleria Morone di Milano in una mostra dal titolo Accoppiamenti giudiziosi.
Intervista
So che sei di Bologna ma vivi a Berlino dal 1989. Cosa ti attirò all’epoca di questa città, cosa pensavi di trovarci di proficuo per il tuo lavoro e cosa vi hai realmente trovato?
Berlino nel settembre del 1989 era ancora una città divisa, io ero nella zona ovest per fare un semestre di studi all’Università delle Arti. Dopo un paio di mesi con la caduta del muro la situazione storico-politica era così interessante che pensai di prolungare il mio periodo di studi. Non era una città “in” come la Berlino di oggi, e non era nemmeno un centro d’arte internazionale, allora la scena internazionale artistica si muoveva tra New York, Londra e Colonia. Berlino Ovest era come un’isola, con un diametro di ca. 48 km, racchiusa da un muro in mezzo alla DDR (la Repubblica Democratica Tedesca, cioè la zona est, comunista). Le complicazioni per raggiungere Berlino Ovest non erano poche, il modo più veloce era l’aereo, allora però non esistevano voli a basso costo, i voli erano pochi e cari, i mezzi più usati erano treno e auto, e con entrambi i mezzi si doveva passare dai cosidetti “corridoi” ferroviari o stradali attraverso il territorio della DDR, bisognava sottoporsi a minuziosi controlli della polizia alle frontiere con tempi di attesa medio-lunghi. Se poi da Berlino ovest si voleva visitare Berlino Est era necessario un visto di ventiquattro ore. Descrivo tutto questo in quanto oggi non ci si rende conto di quanto fosse complessa e sempre presente la realtà politica della guerra fredda. Berlino Est era controllata dalle truppe sovietiche e Berlino Ovest dalle truppe delle forze alleate che controllavano la città in tre zone: americana, inglese e francese. Con il crollo del muro non è cambiato tutto da un giorno all’altro, la riunificazione delle due Germanie è avvenuta un anno dopo: il 3 ottobre 1990. Le truppe alleate si sono ritirate solo nel 1994.
La storia del secolo ventesimo era ancora molto presente, in particolare la seconda guerra mondiale, le rovine in alcune strade di Berlino Est sembravano le culisse del film di Rossellini Germania anno zero. All’inizio degli anni Novanta ho girato molto materiale video: lunghi camera car fra le strade di Berlino Est. Sicuramente questa presenza così insistente del passato e i conflitti socio-politici della riunificazione sono stati degli elementi che mi hanno interessato in quegli anni e sono stati decisivi anche per i lavori che ho realizzato più avanti.
Sono stata io nasce alla fine del secolo scorso. Come questo momento di passaggio ha influenzato la genesi dell’opera?
È stato determinante: all’inizio del 1999 avevo una forte esigenza di riflettere sul secolo che stava terminando, un secolo in cui siamo stati spettatori dell’invenzione della radio, della tv, di internet e nello stesso tempo sono avvenute le atrocità più terribili, impensabili: i campi di concentramento, l’invenzione e l’utilizzo della bomba atomica.
Il 1999 è stato un anno, pesante proprio perchè si stava concludendo un secolo e per il contrasto storico degli avvenimenti accaduti.
L’utilizzo di più medium in questo lavoro suggerisce letture separate e quindi differenti tra loro oppure va a determinare un concetto di opera totale?
I diversi formati si sono sviluppati nel corso del tempo, dopo aver sistemato il manoscritto, considerando che l’ho sempre pensato come opera d’arte e non come opera letteraria, il primo modo per esporlo che ho utilizzato è stato quello audio nel 2002: feci registrare in uno studio una speaker tedesca, Susanne Kuhlbrodt, che leggeva in un’ora il testo. La lettura doveva essere rectotonica, in altri termini doveva evitare le emozioni il più possibile, doveva leggere tutto di seguito, come se fossero notizie del telegiornale, senza pause. La scelta di una voce femminile non è casuale, non è solo in riferimento a me che sono l’autrice dell’opera, ma è anche una sorta di statement femminista. Nel 2005 è uscito poi come libro tascabile nelle edizioni Revolver – Archiv für aktuelle Kunst di Francoforte; nel 2006 ho realizzato per la prima volta la versione a parete grande 3 x 6 metri, e nel 2012 si è aggiunta l’app in 4 lingue per iPhone e iPad. E poi ci sono le varie traduzioni del manoscritto tedesco in diverse lingue: la versione italiana l’ho curata io, poi è stato tradotto in inglese (da Ann Cotton), in francese (dal Centre d’Art Passerelle di Brest), in svedese (da Jenny Tunedal) e in cinese (dal Goethe-Institut di Hong Kong). La pubblicazione italiana e inglese e uscita nel 2007 dall’editore Corraini.
Esiste anche una versione audio inglese letta nel 2008 da Jennifer Allen, e una italiana letta nel 2011 da Elettra de Salvo.
Quindi è un’opera che cresce nel tempo.
Nel tuo lavoro decidi di alternare azioni e fatti che ti rendono carnefice e vittima. Come nasce la scelta degli eventi e dei personaggi che hai deciso di inserire nella tua opera? Qual è il criterio adottato?
La struttura è quella del calendario, dal 1 gennaio al 31 dicembre. Gli anni degli avvenimenti si possono consultare nella cronologia accanto al lavoro, o alla fine del libro.
La scelta degli avvenimenti è molto personale, nel corso del tempo ho raccolto articoli, foto, fatti, da giornali, libri, biblioteche. L’uso di internet per le ricerche è stato molto relativo, in quanto nel 1999 siti come Wikipedia non erano ancora sviluppati e completi così come li conosciamo oggi. Il 90% del mio materiale di ricerca era su carta, articoli raccolti nel corso degli anni, ingialliti e a volte con notizie scritte sul margine un po’ illegibili. Il materiale era eterogeneo: fatti importanti si alternavano a notizie di cronaca irrilevanti, ma che in qualche modo mi avevano colpito; in un certo senso è un lavoro anche autobiografico.
Il lettore ascoltando il tuo testo o leggendolo non necessariamente segue l’intero percorso dei 366 giorni ma può selezionare visivamente vari eventi andando quasi a costruire egli stesso di volta in volta un’ulteriore microstoria. Pensi sia appropriato parlare di un fruitore che partecipa attivamente al “significato” dell’opera, diventando egli stesso parte di questa?
Sì, assolutamente; ho usato la forma dell'”io” narrante proprio perchè ognuno si possa identificare con la storia. È l’idea base dell’opera: la storia è individuale, non collettiva. Messaggio indicato anche con la scelta dell’avvenimento dell’ 8 maggio: «”La colpa, come l’innocenza, non è collettiva, ma personale”: dal mio discorso alla Camera dei Deputati tedesca il giorno dell’anniversario della liberazione». In realtà sono le parole di Richard von Weizsäcker, presidente della BRD (Repubblica Federale della Germania /ovest) nel 1985.
Christian Boltanski, lavorando sul concetto di morte e perdita di memoria, parla dell’importanza di una “piccola memoria” che riguarda il quotidiano, un’intimità che si contrappone al concetto di “grande memoria” dei fatti storici. Nel tuo lavoro entrambi i concetti in un certo senso coesistono: la prima persona si lega alla narrazione di fatti storici. Come convivono questi due aspetti? La piccola e la grande memoria in qualche modo si prevaricano o riescono a trovare un equilibrio?
La scelta di mischiare fatti importanti conosciuti e identificabili da tutti con fatti di cronaca che vedevano come protagonisti persone sconosciute è stato un filo conduttore fin dall’inizio del lavoro, anche per il materiale raccolto durante gli anni, come ad esempio il 15 agosto quando viene trovato ad Amburgo il cadavere di una pensionata malata di “accumulo patologico”. Nel mio diario, essendo scritto tutto in prima persona, la piccola e la grande memoria vengono a trovare inevitabilmente un equilibrio complementare.
Secondo te quanto cambia un testo e quanto rischia di essere snaturato nel momento in cui viene tradotto in un’altra lingua? Nel caso particolare di un’opera come Sono stata io, in cui è preponderante l’aspetto linguistico, credi ci sia qualcosa di diverso o qualcosa che si perde rispetto alla versione tedesca, lingua in cui l’opera è stata concepita?
Secondo me, in questo caso, non c’è un vero e proprio snaturamento, la versione italiana l’ho tradotta io e mi sono presa la libertà di tradurla adattandola alla lingua molto diversa dalla lingua tedesca, le altre traduzioni le ho potute seguire/controllare, a parte quella cinese per la quale mi sono dovuta fidare del Goethe-Institut di Hong Kong, che sicuramente ha fatto un ottimo lavoro di traduzione, ma il livello visivo del testo era cambiato a tal punto da non riconoscere più l’opera, forse quella è l’unica versione che sento leggermente estranea, proprio per l’impatto visivo così diverso da come l’avevo concepito io.
Nella sua Cultural History la Darboven esegue un lavoro di creazione di una storia culturale della modernità alternando oggetti, testi ed immagini. Questa artista ha influenzato il tuo lavoro? E conseguentemente: da cosa deriva la volontà della prevalenza di un testo scritto e la completa eliminazione di immagini?
Non direttamente, anche se Hanne Darboven è stata un’artista che mi ha sempre interessato.
Quando ho cominciato a pensare al progetto Sono stata io. Diario 1900-1999 avevo in mente un’immagine: una persona che corre, fino all’ultimo respiro, attraverso il secolo ventesimo, come se corresse in un cerchio, infatti la struttura scelta è quella del calendario dal 1 gennaio al 31 dicembre, le date e i luoghi cambiano, ma la tipologia dei fatti si ripete: guerre, delitti, suicidi, rapimenti, paesi e città vengono distrutti, ricostruiti, ribattezzati; il mio “io narrante“ è un giorno testimone, un altro giorno vittima e il giorno dopo artefice.
Quando ho cominciato a raccogliere il materiale, ho raccolto anche molte immagini, e all’inizio ho fatto una serie di disegni: Double Drawings, micro storie raccontate con immagini sovrapposte proprio utilizzando lo stesso materiale.
Poi la versione del diario su stoffa vinilica di 3 x 6 metri, in qualche modo è un’immagine: i caratteri della macchina da scrivere, le righe troppo lunghe per essere veramente lette o scritte, per me diventa un’immagine. Forse proprio per questo che dopo la versione audio e dopo il libro ho sentito la necessità di realizzare una stampa su tela da appendere, per avere in qualche modo una visione di come quel testo restituisce al lettore l’idea di un’immagine.
A quali nuovi progetti ti stai dedicando adesso?
Ho appena terminato con la collaborazione dello Studio G7 il libro My Film History che è parte dell’installazione Daniela Comani’s Top 100 Films esposta alla mostra Autoritratti. Iscrizioni del femminile nell’arte italiana contemporanea al MAMbo, visibile a Bologna fino al 1° settembre. Adesso sto preparando un’altra pubblicazione per “festeggiare” dieci anni di Matrimonio felice, work in progress iniziato nel 2003: una serie fotografica con scene di vita quotidiana di una coppia, dove io interpreto sia la moglie che il marito; ma non si tratta di travestimento, è una messa in scena molto minimale, dove giocano un ruolo decisivo gli stereotipi sociali: lei siede composta e lui a gambe aperte, lei sorride, lui no, lei indossa una maglietta aderente, lui una larga e così via, cliché che funzionano ancora oggi come cinquanta anni fa. Nel libro saranno raccolte anche le domande più frequenti che mi sono state rivolte nel corso degli anni in rapporto alle foto della “coppia felice”: «Vi assomigliate tanto, siete da molto tempo insieme?» domanda alla quale potrei rispondere: «Sì, siamo insieme da un secolo».
Date e dati del XX secolo nell’opera Ich war’s. Tagebuch 1900-1999 di Daniela Comani
Il confronto fra l’individuo e la storia è al centro di un’opera monumentale e al tempo stesso impalpabile dell’artista Daniela Comani, Ich war’s. Tagebuch 1900-1999 (Sono stata io. Diario 1900-1999), realizzata in diversi formati nel 2002, nel 2005 e presentata nel 2011 alla LIV Biennale di Venezia per il Padiglione di San Marino.
Nata a Bologna nel 1965 e diplomata presso l’Accademia di Belle Arti della sua città, Daniela Comani si è trasferita a Berlino nel 1989, l’anno della caduta del Muro. Nella Berlino degli anni Novanta, fra riunificazione e ricostruzione, smottamenti politici ed esperimenti sociali, ha proseguito la sua formazione, dando inizio a un’attività artistica orientata verso i temi degli stereotipi di genere, delle abitudini culturali, della memoria, ed espressa attraverso fotografie, disegni, video, performance, installazioni, assemblage, produzioni editoriali.
Ich war’s. Tagebuch 1900-1999 (Sono stata io. Diario 1900-1999) racconta l’intero secolo XX concentrando una selezione di fatti epocali in un anno virtuale di 366 giorni. L’opera ha tre versioni: si può ascoltare come una radiocronaca, in diverse lingue europee, fra cui il tedesco, lingua in cui l’opera è stata in origine concepita; si può leggere sfogliando un libro, diverso per impaginazione da lingua a lingua; si può guardare, stampata su tela e montata su un grande pannello, come un muro di date e parole, di dimensioni variabili a seconda della collocazione. Nella versione audio, l’ascolto va dal primo gennaio al 31 dicembre che, nella selezione, corrispondono rispettivamente alla fondazione del partito comunista tedesco il I gennaio del 1919 e alla fuga da Cuba del dittatore Batista il 31 dicembre del 1958. Nel libro e nell’allestimento, invece, l’accesso ai dati (e alle date) non è necessariamente sequenziale; il lettore può consultare il diario come vuole, andando da una data all’altra secondo percorsi personali, curiosità, suggestioni, rimandi.
La peculiarità di questa selezione risiede nel fatto che tutti gli avvenimenti riportati – le guerre e le paci, gli attentati, i libri, i suicidi, i trattati – sono raccontati dall’autrice in prima persona, da cui il titolo Sono stata io. In questo diagramma di un secolo, appoggiato sull’impalcatura condivisa del calendario, l’artista si esprime «come se queste cose fossero capitate a lei, come se di volta in volta fosse Hirohito, Hitler o Einstein. Si tratta della storia letta attraverso il filtro dell’io. La storia siamo noi. Artefici e vittime al tempo stesso» (Angela Madesani).
Un cortocircuito scatta fra l’enormità dei fatti raccontati e il singolo soggetto (femminile in italiano, indecidibile in altre lingue), che se ne assume la responsabilità, inducendo riflessioni su temi cruciali del Novecento. Due guerre mondiali, le cadute di imperi secolari, l’Olocausto, i regimi dittatoriali, le armi di distruzione di massa, il colonialismo, il capitalismo, i terrorismi, il femminismo, la contestazione, la speranza in un mondo migliore: la memoria e gli effetti di lunga durata di questi fatti (o tendenze o strutture) si affollavano nel decennio – gli anni Novanta – in cui Daniela Comani matura quest’opera.
Nel 1990 era uscito il saggio dello storico americano Hillel Schwartz, Century’s end: a cultural history of the fin de siècle from the 990s through the 1990s, che analizzava, comparandoli, i caratteri ricorrenti delle crisi di fine secolo nel secondo millennio. Sulla cultural history avevano del resto già da tempo cominciato a interrogarsi gli artisti, basti qui fare il nome di Hanne Darboven, con la sua imponente opera Kulturgeschichte 1880-1983, presentata nel 1986 a Parigi e poi nel 1996-’97 a New York. Un’opera su tempo, storia e memoria, un grande archivio che “più che la definizione di un’epoca, è la riscrittura di una storia” (C. Subrizi, Se l’arte archivia il tempo, in Azioni che cambiano il mondo, 2012).
Nel 1994 usciva il volume dello storico britannico Eric J. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, il cui titolo sarebbe diventato una sorta di slogan per definire il Novecento: “il secolo breve”, con le sue fasi, l’età della catastrofe, l’età dell’oro e la frana, che corrispondeva alla caduta dell’Unione Sovietica e del Muro di Berlino. Daniela Comani arriva nella città ancora divisa, il cui cielo, diviso anch’esso (come aveva raccontato negli anni Sessanta Christa Wolf nel romanzo Der geteilte Himmel, titolo anche di una recente mostra alla Nationalgalerie) era stato reso famoso dal film di Wim Wenders del 1987 Il cielo sopra Berlino. E si trova, piccolo individuo solitario e straniero, in mezzo a una svolta storica, che avrebbe segnato la memoria collettiva e personale. In quella città-laboratorio – racconta ella stessa – comincia a percepire quasi fisicamente la pesantezza del secolo che andava finendo, come un Atlante che regge la volta celeste sulle spalle. L’accumulo degli avvenimenti del secolo diventa un pensiero dominante finché non deciderà di concentrarsi proprio su questo accumulo, di farne l’oggetto di un’opera atlantica per ampiezza e obiettivi.
Comincia a raccogliere articoli tratti da quotidiani e riviste italiane e tedesche, fotografie, notizie brevi, all’inizio senza un’intenzione precostituita. I ritagli si accumulano su tavoli e scrivanie nel suo studio, stratificandosi in palinsesti orizzontali, in pile e in scatole. La scelta cade su fatti singolari, biografie che la colpiscono. Un primo utilizzo di questo materiale si trova, a partire dal 1995, nella serie dei cosiddetti Double Drawings, disegni di volti e figure prelevati dalla stampa periodica e tracciati a ricalco su carta da lucido, in modo da poter essere sovrapposti. Ritratti doppi, sfaccettati, multipli, come quello dedicato alla davvero multipla personalità e al tragico destino di Tamara Bunke (1937-1967), guerrigliera e agente segreto, interprete e rivoluzionaria, tedesca e argentina, nonché cubana. I media sono la fonte da cui attingere per raccontare singole storie emblematiche, avatar di storie più grandi, della storia tout-court.
È nel gennaio del 1999 che il progetto di Ich war’s comincia a prendere concretamente forma. Sullo sfondo ci sono i dieci anni trascorsi a Berlino e i materiali già raccolti fino ad allora, usati per i “disegni doppi” e conservati nell’atelier, in quello che la stessa Comani definisce un archivio personale, aperto, non organizzato con criteri scientifici. L’ossimoro di “archivio caotico” rende bene la situazione di questo accumulo, casuale ma non inefficace, in cui l’effetto serendipity (si trova una cosa mentre se ne cerca un’altra) svolge un suo ruolo creativo, spostando le riflessioni e le ricerche su nuove piste, talvolta inaspettate. L’idea di usare gli innumerevoli ritagli e foto, appunti e testi, per raccontare il ‘900 dalla parte di un singolo soggetto, un individuo immaginario che abbia attraversato il secolo, ha bisogno, per realizzarsi, di trovare una struttura d’appoggio. Questa struttura è individuata dall’artista in quel sistema di partizione del tempo basato sulle date (dal latino datum: dato, redatto il) che è il calendario, un sistema in grado di offrire una griglia alla dispersività e alla compresenza dei fatti accaduti, dotato di una natura insieme pubblica e privata, amministrativa e identitaria.
Nominando il calendario, di nuovo il pensiero corre all’artista tedesca Hanne Darboven, che fin dagli anni Sessanta aveva lavorato sulle strutture del tempo in opere “calendariali” e, più avanti, aveva stilato elenchi di avvenimenti, allestendo opere al tempo stesso concettuali e dal forte impatto visivo. E in relazione alle date, un richiamo va fatto al giapponese On Kawara con la sua Today series. Tutti riferimenti importanti per Daniela Comani (con On Kawara, nel 1996, ha partecipato alla collettiva Lesen, presso la Kunsthalle di Sankt Gallen in Svizzera).
Torniamo a Ich war’s. Scelta l’ossatura, in questo caso una griglia di 366 caselle, bisognava riempirla tutta, selezionando un fatto ogni giorno, per un totale di 366 accadimenti che rappresentassero, in modo significativo, tutti gli anni del secolo. Il racconto dei fatti non avrebbe però seguito la successione degli anni, ma si sarebbe svolto giorno dopo giorno in un unico, condensato anno solare, da gennaio a dicembre. Inoltre, poiché la prima versione dell’opera era pensata per un’installazione audio, una sorta di radiocronaca del XX secolo, letta da uno speaker senza interruzioni, il secolo sarebbe risultato condensato in un’ora di ascolto.
A questo punto del progetto, ha inizio la fase operativa.
Quell’archivio personale, aperto, caotico, viene sistematizzato, in modo che nessuna data resti vuota e nessun anno scoperto. Fanno la loro comparsa i classificatori, i pratici ordner dalla copertina nera, e vengono stilate tabelle di corrispondenze fra date e avvenimenti. Comincia una metodica frequentazione delle biblioteche di Berlino (la Nazionale, l’Amerika-Gedenk-Bibliothek), con consultazione di banche dati, visione di microfilm con annate di giornali e riviste d’epoca.
Per tutto il 1999, mentre l’Europa discute dell’euro, mentre la Nato interviene in Serbia e Roberto Benigni vince l’Oscar con La vita è bella, (e mentre tutto il mondo aspetta il 2000 con il terrore del millenium bug), Daniela Comani attende al suo lavoro quotidiano di ricerca e classificazione di quei fatti che hanno portato all’Olocausto, ai conflitti balcanici, all’unità europea, alla globalizzazione tecnologica, trascrivendo e fotocopiando trafiletti, occhielli, lanci di agenzia, saggi e articoli. Prende dagli archivi le notizie, che deposita nel suo schedario personale e poi riversa nell’ordine del calendario. In questo passaggio, però, quelle notizie subiscono un cambiamento inusitato. Di qualunque cosa si parli: la proclamazione del fascismo, il primo volo nello spazio, l’attentato alla stazione di Bologna, la notizia, con linguaggio asciutto, sintetico, quasi protocollare, è sempre data in prima persona. C’è sempre “io”, che compie nefandezze, o prende decisioni umanitarie, o soccombe alle avversità della natura, o sopravvive. «2 gennaio. Berlino. Vengono aperti al pubblico gli archivi della STASI (Servizio per la Sicurezza dello Stato della Repubblica Democratica Tedesca); da oggi ho diritto di esaminare i miei atti»: questa è la seconda data che si incontra in Ich war’s, leggendo di seguito il testo dell’opera. Per verificare l’anno, bisogna consultare la cronologia che correda tutte le edizioni dell’opera stessa. Questo 2 di gennaio risale al 1992, quando gli archivi del servizio di sicurezza della DDR vengono aperti. L’io messo in gioco da Daniela Comani, come uno dei personaggi dello straordinario film Le vite degli altri (von Donnersmarck, 2006), può venire a conoscenza dei controlli a cui è stata sottoposta la sua vita quotidiana e delle registrazioni dei fatti che lo riguardano.
È palese la natura narrativa e finzionale di Ich war’s, adeguata a un’opera in cui l’ascolto e la lettura vengono prima della visione. Del resto, racconta Daniela Comani che, nei mesi di lavoro, il libro che aveva sul tavolo era Memorie di Adriano di Marguerite Yourcenar, la scrittrice di Archivi del Nord, capace di trasformare le tracce delle memorie private, familiari e storiche in sottile e potente materia narrativa. E nume tutelare, sempre presente dietro le spalle, era Borges, con i suoi magistrali passaggi dal reale all’immaginario. In quello stesso anno 1999, usciva la ricerca di Aleida Assmann sulla memoria culturale, Erinnerungensräume, Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, che rimetteva in gioco i temi della responsabilità e della funzione dell’arte nella cura della memoria collettiva e l’anno prima una mostra apripista, a cura della Haus der Kunst di Monaco, aveva affrontato il tema dell’archiviazione nell’arte: Deep Storage. Collecting, Storing, and Archiving in Art, presentando una selezione ricchissima di esperienze estetiche ed artistiche che avevano a che fare con la conservazione, l’archiviazione, l’immagazzinamento, la memorizzazione.
La fine del secolo XX era dunque un terreno fertile per opere di questa natura.
Ora, a Berlino, Daniela Comani lavora nello spazio del Künstlerhaus Bethanien, ex-ospedale destinato a residenze d’artista. Immerso in un sobrio giardino, con le sue torrette in facciata, i vasti corridoi, i cameroni, è un luogo di memoria della città, situato com’è nella zona di Kreuzburg, un tempo al confine fra le due metà. Benché impegnata in nuovi progetti (le Novità editoriali edite da Corraini, la mostra She says a Charlottesville, Virginia), Daniela Comani continua a mettere da parte – sempre con caotico spirito archivistico – ritagli, immagini, appunti, in classificatori e scatole che hanno ormai da tempo, a tutti gli effetti, cittadinanza attiva nell’arte contemporanea.
Scorrendo ancora una volta il calendario di Ich war’s, l’irriverenza nei confronti della cronologia sconcerta e attrae, costringe a un andirivieni nella storia, a uno sforzo di identificazione, a una proficua attività del pensiero. Si cerca di ricordare, senza andare a controllare subito nella cronologia, in che anno, il 10 ottobre, “io” occupo la segreteria dell’Accademia di Belle Arti di Düsseldorf; e chi sono “io” (nella fattispecie sono Joseph Beuys e l’anno è il 1972).
In questa anamnesi, si sovrappongono memorie personali, ci si ricorda dove veramente si era in alcune date cruciali della storia collettiva, il cui impatto ha fissato la nostra posizione nel tempo. “Sono stata io”, dice Daniela Comani. Io penso: chi è stato e quando? E poi: dov’ero io allora? Dove sono, sempre, mentre la storia accade?
ANTONELLA SBRILLI è Professore Associato di Storia dell’arte contemporanea presso il Dipartimento di Storia dell’arte e Spettacolo della Sapienza Università di Roma, dove si occupa anche di Informatica applicata ai beni culturali. Ha pubblicato ricerche sull’arte romantica, su De Chirico, sugli scambi fra letteratura e arti visive (Sterne e Dada; Nabokov e Warburg); sul gioco (mostra Ah, che rebus! Cinque secoli di enigmi fra arte e gioco in Italia, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Roma 2010). Ha co-fondato e gestisce il blog Dicono di Oggi sul tempo nella finzione artistica.
Questo articolo è stato già pubblicato su Archive Tellers.
