You don’t forget fear.  How can you? You forget the name of someone the minute they utter it at an opening and you forget the name of a guy you met in Kingsize. You don’t forget fear. Is that a politically correct euphemism for f*ck fear, like we would say fudge fear? Or is this word really weighed in it’s place, meaning to fail to think of; take no note of?

I know three things that cancel fear.
Art
Humor
Small children –(when they don’t yell)

Sir Artur tried to not-curate a show with very little art, absolutely no humor, and He even included a video showing just exactly where these cute little babies come from. How could it go well? (You! And You, and You!- stop smiling!) Did He expect it to go well? Did He want it to go well?

The Open Call Archive as a sculpture (you had no access to the files) and ArtWiki (online) -by Pit Schultz

-Let’s go out back, there may be chicken again!
-You name your thing „Forget Fear“ and then do your best to scare everybody to death, every step of the way? What is that?
-I think He meant it more in the way: Forget the Fear You Thought You Knew. You want fear? I’ll show you FEAR!!
-If you would not invite a non surgeon to operate on your heart- I don’t understand why you would invite a non artist to create an art piece, this is extremely disrespectful to the artist profession. This is dangerous populism.
-I like it. He finally did it- he reached the end of the museum. Where others put chicken he put political activists
-Yeah...
-Yeah?
-But Why?
-Es ist nur diese Dauer-Enttaüschung... Du denkst das wird jetzt was, Du glaubst an Kunst und...
-Wenn er an Kunst nicht mehr glaubt, sollte Er lieber auch keine Ausstellung kuratorien  
-I never thought i would actually look forward to the whole Gallery Weekend thing- what a relieve! Frames!
-I just can’t decide did this thing got out of hand, or is it all planned?
-Well if he meant it he is diabolical genius, if it just happened he is a fool.
-It is just the language barrier. They said „curator“. He understood „Creator“
-When he assigned a curator at his side you would assume the whole thing, would be...in a way curated- not an art piece
-Over verbal Left Stencil Hippies, Terrorists, Jesus Christ the King, naked people in the gaschamber, and then more Auschwitz, In fact the only thing that seems to be missing in this bb is a video on how to stuff animals. How to skin foxes..
-What is it with the berlin biennals, one is worse than the other! Maybe Catellan’s was kind of ok in retrospect, but even that was pretty painful at the time.
-We should find a time machine, go back in time and bring Klaus Biesenbach back to the future to see the monster he created!
-I think somebody has, in fact many times already.
-Maybe they just have too much time in their hands- two years to curate this? No wonder it will flop – nobody can follow your train of thoughts of two years, not even yourself.
-I say give them two months tops, next time. If it goes wrong, you would not have spent all this money.
-well that’s 2,8 million we will never see again
-You cannot declare „hey I am being provocative“- “I will provoke the hell out of you. You don’t say it, you let the others say it. Does a stripper declare- “I am going to be naked now, look, look tities!„ It ruins the effect.
-It is really too soon to tell- it is an open process, open processes. We just have to wait and see how it will develop over time.
-Yeah but you know as well as I do, that none of us will return here.
-I think it is very interesting how he created these mechanisms, bringing people to think, making them face their positions, reflect...
-Why don’t you just go see the show first, man, then you „reflect“.
-Ich fühle mich unwohl in diesem T- Shirt. Ich will nicht etwas tragen was ich nicht verstehe. Wir haben Ihn gefragt was es soll aber Er antwortert nicht. Er antwortet NIE! Dieses Logo ist nicht logisch!! (Exasparated gallery attendant wearing T-shirt mit dem Hacken Logo)
-Musst Du auch was darüber schreiben?
-Zum Glück Nicht!

opening night KW

I personally like to keep my fears right there where I can see them. As an artist the fear has two sides. a. I have nothing to say: What do I have to say that is so important, that I don’t shut up and b.Nobody will listen:  How can I say it in a way people (most people, some people) will be able to hear it. These two voices, in stereo, accompany you/me through the whole creative process, blocking and opening the way from the studio to the public. I am reaching out a bit in the dark here, but the way I see it, “successful“ is the artwork that, regardless of aesthetical value, political conviction, style, direction, medium, will show this process to the viewer, leaving it open, albeit filtered through the artist, through the material for the "fear", and the “failure“ -because one always fails- to be „re-lived“ and „re-felt“. I think this offers a relief of some shorts in the banality of everyday life, and this feeling of being absolutely helpless. You will recognize the feeling of walking into a show and after a few seconds feel alive, bold and full of ideas for things you want to do. And this, however fleeting, and however f*cked up the art market is or gets, will remain the social value of art, for me.

curator Artur Żmijewski at the Berlin '45 War re-enactment
 

Berlin biennal does not seek to relieve in any way. It does not really seek to embolden either. Quite the opposite, it loads a whole load of crap (if you allow the language) into the viewers head- oppositional believe systems parallel to each other, un-curated and un-filtered, the human body appearing only as a helpless mess, death, disease, from Jesus Christ to war to (so called) terrorist groups...
To achieve what?
-To challenge and provoke? Then the dose it to big. Challenge stops after the 50th stencil slogan, the 100th written page you have to read, the 5th insane lunatic declaring himself an artist. You are only left with a feeling of complete helplessness, anger, and in the end indifference. If that was the purpose, then elemantery PR and creative mistakes were made.
-To corner the viewer, mirror back to him his own shallowness and insignificance? Ok good, but to what purpose? Those who can realize this, the people who visited the opening by the hundreds, to see what is going on (while the curators where in a private reception) already know it, already live it. Those who don’t, would not set foot in an exhibition like that anyway, they just don’t care.
-Or is it that the viewer is not asked to sort through all this material (because he can’t) but reflect it, carry it -as a surface.( In a way taking the place of the canvas in Żmijewski’s video Them?) In this case the viewer's inability to process all this, is pre meditated. The viewer is manipulated into being a part in a (megalomaniac) Über-artwork? The rare sight of an excited Żmijewski at the Berlin War ’45 re-enactment, filming the crowds who were iphoning the hell out of those soldiers, - some poor bastards with fake blood on their faces – made me feel like that. This actually does kind of work.

Forget Fear? No man. Forget You.