Today I spent money, shopping for food until Monday evening when I arrive in Copenhagen. I went to the central market, a garage-sale-heaven, although I didn’t pick up anything except some food, it was fun walking around making some sound fragments. It seems most of the sellers are Eastern European and Turkish, which reinforces my impression that Vienna really is a unique intersection of East and West. Most shops close at noon on Saturday in this good Catholic nation, and almost nothing is open on Sunday, so if you are without food, you are without food! I met Mathias and Sylvia at their place for coffee (on the balcony, no less!). Summer is completely here, the trees behind their block opened perceptibly during the afternoon — during the few hours we spent cleaning and painting the new studio, the leaves on the trees doubled in size. Spring this year in Europe is explosive!
The studio, (named TELLER after a sizeable neon sign over the front), is a former tailors shop across Sebastianplatz from their building, which they secured from the landlord who, in the end, worrying about officialdom, gave it to them rent-free. It is looking good! The weather is fantastic, and we had a quiet dinner of Mathias’ lasagna back on the balcony, accompanied by the thin crescent moon and Venus who still holds brilliant sway in the evening sky.
The works of art which are being created now, in these days and years, emerge from an environment highly polluted by an autistic break in all forms of conversation. Those who should hear each other do not hear each other, those who need to talk the most do not talk, and those who are talking, do not tell the truth. — Ivana Stefanovic