_ day) with about 2 m3 metres of water

altogether
Documenting the elaboration of a fresco
painting “Aldeia viva” (Aldeia de dinâmica
social / on the visual economy of rural
social dynamics)” in the Casa da Caldeira first and second lime layer to fill extensive
(at Correias/Rio Maior, Ribatejo, Portugal) holes in the surface up to 8 cm in depth:
3rd – 28th April 2013 0,8 ton of gravel mixed with sands of
various diameters + 200 kg hydrated lime
(calcium oxide watered on 12.IV.2013)

Technical data the second layer has been marked with

ultramarine pigment in lime solution (no
Public mural intervention no. 132 of Free casein to avoid migration of casein finish
Fresco Academy to velo surfaces, for the overall lime body
remained highly wet and uncarbonated
during the whole preparation process) to
Participants: delimit the plastering task of the second
last layer for each day-shift respectively
In the planning and decision process: plus 4 cm
Masha, Anna-Maria, Virgílio, Martin

Pictorial research, decisions defining

figurative and colour dynamics: Masha, Second last layer (stucco): 200 kg of
Martin fluvial sand from Rio Maior, particles not
too round, mixed sizes of diameters under
Manual execution: fresco painting by 3 mm, silicate colours: black and cold grey
Martin, last touch in casein: Oktobrinka + 44 kg of hydrated lime Ca(OH)2 x X H20
(calcium oxide [CaO] watered on
12.IV.2013 for day-shift 3 to 6 mixed with
Surface of final fresco: oxide watered on 22.IV.2013)

Painting day- Date of Square The second last plastering layer has been
shift no. accomplishment metres marked with the traditional medieval mural
1 19.IV.2013 3,61 sketching pigment “bolo rosso” applied in
2 22.IV. 4,96 simple lime solution (without casein) on
3 24.IV. 4,35 the precise borderline of the following day-
4 26.IV. 3,61 shift (accuracy of pre-planning 0,5 cm)
5 27.IV. 4,92
6 28.IV. 3,82
total surface: 25,27 Last layer (velo, the sail): 80 kg of deposit
sand with traces of strongly yellowish clay
(natural Yellow Iron oxide, FexOx), after
Materials used:
trial fresco utilised unwashed (to preserve
from 9.IV.2013 onwards, the moment of a prima effect of natural colouring) + 20 kg
accomplishing to clean acrylic moisture of hydrated lime (calcium oxide watered in
blockers from the surface, the wall has spring 2012, with later day-shifts profiting
been kept in full range moisture regime in from layers up to several years older)
about 45 sprinkling sessions (2 to 7 per

1
The pigments used on the last layer after All pigments employed can be
superficial calcification (on average after characterised as highly transparent,
12 hours after plastering) have been though they characteristically concentrate
limited to 4 experimentally following to highly dense, covering hues when the
suggestions by Sickert on oil painting ratio of pigment to calcinated water is
colour dynamics. augmented above 1.

Cold dark: 140 g Terra di Cipro, natura Time of work needed, including modelling,
fredda, excellently thinning out in highly drafting and clean-up: five full working
transparent hues, earth pigment labelled weeks plus weekends respectively, slightly
by the trader (Kremer, Hauptstr. 41-47, D- more than 300 working hours
88317 Aichstetten) as “no. 0720 Umbra
gebrannt schwarzbraun, cyprisch”

Warm very light: 70 g Terra di Sienna Register of animals, figures and related
natural (Kremer no. 40400) highly objects shown in the picture
transparent, i.e. of very light particle (see schematic overview drawing, picture
weight, , thus difficult to access in
with 194 points of reference)
concentrated form at the bottom of its
water solution, earth pigment A. flying macaque

Very warm light: 80 g orange iron oxide, B. white cat

mineral pigment, heavy particle
composition, highly covering, difficult to C. gay spring cow
keep in watery solution, labelled by the
trader (Kremer) as “no. 48060 D. African spider
Eisenoxidorange 960”
E. little river lobster
Coldest dark: 200 g Ultramarine blue,
F. left draught ox
mineral pigment, strongest graphical ability
to create special effects in weak solution G. right drought ox
received as a present from Bauhof
community in Herleshausen, procured H. fly
from traders in the South of France, most
probably of German chemical industry I. chameleon
production
1. Photis (friend of Lucien)

1. a) saucepan
Pigments have been dissolved in overall 3
2. morose monk
litres of strongly calcinated water
(Ca(COH)2 x XH2O), allowing to carbonise 2. a) monk's frock
even “pastose”_ brush strokes of
concentrated pigments up to a millimetre, 2. b) prayer pearls, a broken chain
“pastose”_ mud of Hydrated lime in high
concentration (water content lower than 50 2. c) Dominican’s belt
%) has been used to height certain spots
3. Diego Mason, the Romanic conspirator
above the luminance of the velo or, in a
more 3. a) a book by Martin Kraemer Liehn:
„Revolutionary Collectives“, Warszawa 2008,
2
available on shepherd from the North working in
www.archive.org/details/revolutionaryCollecti Ribatejo... or dreaming about such a career on
ves an evening while serving on a hil above
Correias 1857
3. b) Neolithic scull of a worshipper of the sun
10. spinning shepherd, telling stories, using his
4. curious kid free hands to fulfil women's tasks
4. a) cosmic baseball cap protecting from 10. a) wool to be spun
immediate fall-out
11. shepherd clown (all shepherds 9, 10, 11,
5. la bruxa 12 and 34 in straw clothing fro Portugal's
6. old climbing artist north)

6. a) black glove 11. a) fire but nothing to roast (there will be

vegetarian chicken served, see 19. b)
6. b) ballet shoes (compare 52 e) and 52 f))
12. woman shepherd telling tales with sharp
7. young climbing artist morals

7. a) hitch-hiking thumb 13. Mr P. getting sufficiently drunk on red

wine at the age of 6 to become a wise man: so
8. Rapunzel (Grimm's fairy tales), saves people
today the wine reservoir are and remain
from bad food with her healthy long hair
empty
advocating organic farming
13. a) barrel of wine
8. a) BLACK hair (no blond hair, the main
source for Grimm’s fairy tales was a Huguenot 13. b) olive tree above the valley of Correias in
immigrant from France) 1917

9. the ancient shepherd mariner of Portugal’s 13. c) first champagne class hold to relief boy
North („the ancient mariner“ travelling to from drinking fit
Antarctica in British opium poetry)
13. d) second glass
9. a) sails of a great sailor seen from the very
top down to deck and sea 13. e) third glass

9. b) ladders for sailors to climb seen from top 14. holder of the pomegranate
of the ship down 14. a) pomegranate
9. c) black covers on the sails to hide the red 14. b) glass plate on column or fruits of the
Portuguese seafarers Roman-catholic cross
adjacent gardens
while pirating rival vessels
14. c) plate of my childhood, I was first able to
9. d) top of the mast platform, look-out, one appreciate its factual gesture of out-reaching
of three
hospitality in Stuttgart 1974
9. e) steering wheel for sailing ship, not hold
14. d) another pomegranate
by captain (upper class, sown in his cabin
because wind is getting stronger) instead hold 14. e) kiwi from the home garden nearby
by the fist mate, lower class formerly a
3
14. f) tomato grown and ripened nearby there is working tasks for 'Woman only'. How
courageous of you to say such things under
15. dame d'honneurs our watch, so here you are 'TOMA'!“
15. a) pommel 19. a) shovel of wood for getting bread (or
15. b) grapes not for cortiçada hotels little lobsters) out of the oven

15. c) red orange little fruits with hard kernel, 19. b) vegan organic chicken of soy glee meat
sweet and soft, very popular with kids, local, imitation, the bones are said to be of plastic
documented already in Arab times (even if you detest capitalist mass chicken
farming: better do not play football with this
16. young Indian well-meant work of art as in at the Wiesenhof
Schachterei besetzung near Lüneburg in
16. a) plait of hair
summer 2010)
17. Colonel advocating to better become a
19. c) Alentejo field workers' head
doctor
19. d) neat and tiny traditional buttoning
17. a) no place on the table for Super Bock
making erotic seduction during and after work
17. b) a colonel... but maybe he'll manage to possible only for very patient womenfolk
finish studies
19. e) the missing item
18. Vladimir the king of lobsters (not
19. f) the museum work dress is rather an
respecting equally of women and men at work
evening dress, on the stereotypes of
and having to face the consequences), keeping
tradiditonal life in puppet reconstruction
his beard like his brother in surname, our nice
teacher: Vladimir Illich Uljanov, also called „L.“ 19. g) very neat shoes, executed in one go,
which meant a special shift of the border
18. a) the forc he used in the river for catching
between 4th and 6th day shift
lobsters when he does so himself
20. dark sailor, pulling up the next barrel
18. b) in the right hand a screw driver (for the
opening the lobster) 20. a) a cord to pull up the ne3xt barrel once
Mr. 13 has finished the first one
18. c) his Soviet watch shows one minute past
five (pm.): lobster time 21. towing sailor

18. d) left button to hold his old-fashioned 22. blond sailor with black features pulling,
trousers stemming his feet against 22. a)

18. e) right button to hold his old-fashioned 22. a) the sailing ship's side board
trousers
23. sailor pulling up and shouting hello
18. f) back of the simple seat he has become
accustomed to in Correias exile 24. small boat's cheerful skipper

19. a woman from Alentejo heated from 24. a) rowing oar used as a steering ruder but
emptying the oven, she says at the same time now stuck into the air to show the crew on
„vegan chicken ready, who wants to be first deck in which direction to pull the barrel
served“ and „We heard you say, Vladimir,
4
24. b) rowing boat to deliver fright to bigger 32. Marianne, l'égalité tiens la ligne
sailing ships on anchor in front of the harbour
32. a) the rope holding the whole weight of
25. small boat luggage fixer the first barrel

25. a) the second barrel to re-lance the 32. b) horizontal wooden crane to hold the
delicately balances first one barrel

26. small boat rowing woman 32. c) upper big wheel to redirect the rope
from vertical to figure no. 32
26. a) rowing bench, one of three
32. d) lower, smaller rope to cut weight to pull
26. b) left rowing oar stemmed by a strong in half and mount metres to pull to twice as
lady much
26. c) right rowing oar stemmed by a strong 32. e) lower correspondence of 32. d
lady
32. f) lower correspondence of 32. c
27. black sailor pulling
32. g) heavyweight hand crane hook,
27. a) left pulling rope for the new barrel masterpiece of a local blacksmith in the 19th
28. supporting sailor century

29. sailor pulling up 32. h) wooden wheel of a traditional Ribatejo

grape cart
30. sailor in the shadow
32. i) connection between the axe and the
31. Mathilda, an American revolutionary of wooden wheel, a neuralgic point to be
our times secured by canopy cords, tightly fastened

31. a) cornerstone of a Ribatejo valley 32. j) the corresponding hole in the wooden
mansion of classical dimensions and tastes, wheel reinforcing the connection between
the latifundial grandeur of reckless axis and wheel with canopy cords, see 33. i
proportions
33. Ribatejo shepherd, medieval social
31. b) Mexican pyramid: where all modern relations create medieval stiffness
social fresco painting has descended from, see
the romantic conspirator Diego R. Featuring as 33. a) stick for cattle driving
personage no. 3 33. b) nail end for communicating with big
31. c) Traditional grape harvesting in Ribatejo: cattle through thick skin
work for many to the benefit of the very few 33. c) traditional Ribatejo macho's head (do
who are affluent enough to get more affluent not dare to market a logotype without this
by agriculture stereotype), appropriated by a female game
31. d) wooden barrel mounted on wooden keeper in this case
wheels to be drawn by two draught oxen 33. d) gauntlet, somehow the medieval
(animals F and G) stagnation of the region drives people to
31. e) lost item move as if in steel gauntlets from the times of
the Conquista
5
33. e) a purse, do not think game driers 41. b) acrobat's moustache
worked for free just to make Ribatejo so
typical 41. c) acrobat's right leg

41. d) acrobat's left leg

34. shepherd from Portugal's north

34. a) glass of water (from the farm's tab) 42. English hippie in Indian Sari

34. b) wooden spoon brought from Portugal’s 42. a) Indian kilt

North 42. b) bolinhos' basket
34. c) felt head 42. c) bolinhos (he will eat the next one
34. d) straw apparel for keeping the rain off himself)
and any expenses out of the family economy 43. „come play with us!“
34. e) flowers for the drought oxen, for a feast 43. a) the children's table for the feast
of harvesting grapes
44. Mr. Scharf of Richiş, Romania, born 1915,
35. the collector of bolinhos giving a toast on his sour white wine nobody
35. a) handkerchief else drinks except for him

35. b) knot in the handkerchief 44. q) taking sour water for wine

35. c) little cestinho de bolinhos 45. scateboarding grandma

35. d) bigger cestinho de bolinhos 45. a) a scate-board

36. chimney cleaning assistant boy 45. b) a cup with verbena infusion (warming
and refreshing up to the shoulder,
37. little Tommy pulling over the only soup, Oktobrinka's casein intervention)
testing the straw clothing of his neighbour, 34
45. c) speed effects from skateboarding to the
37. a) yellow vegetable soup table

38. young prize boxer 46. the young Mr. Teleshov, son of a well
meaning mother with alcohol problems,
38. a) woollen shorts to hide the nappies father disappeared, raised on a glass of water
underneath with sugar a day in a Kiev working class
39. eyes like lighthouses (occhi como fari) neighbourhood (his neighbour sometimes
gives him a bread, she distils poppy straw in
40. Feliks Tych, saved from Warszawa 1944 her flat and needs collaborating neighbours

40. a) white wool above nappies 46. a) a third wooden closing mechanism in
the room
40. b) works of Julian Marchlewski, later in life
to be thrown away without further ado 47. a Christmas carol singer, temporarily not
left hungry after two centuries
41. amateur acrobat of 1899
47. a) bolinho
41. a) acrobat's tricot

6
48. „I have eaten no more bolinhos than you“ 52. a) bolinho with almond on offer for
(double to be precise) incoming guests who take to the stairs up for
the table
49. Anna Smirnova's ideal, born 1968 in
Moscow, dreaming about joining a monastery 52. b) basket with more
after her next big love affair, getting the last
wine from a reservoir which is all but empty 52. c) carnival collar

49. a) tap where the other holes are closed on 52. d) carnival dress
the two reservoirs to the right 52. e) right ballet shoe
49. b) a ceramic jug 52. f) left ballet shoe
49. c) the metal fixer for securing the reservoir 53. Avietta has finally learnt to read
opening (compare real historic examples to Portuguese and rejoices at the out-dated
the right) absurdity of the supposedly rhetorical
50. the telegram sender has come in person question, She could get it as a pragmatic
with an ocean steamer from Belém do Pará, question and do a better fresco son (her first
due to jet lag he has a rest among the efforts have been plastered over some
centimetres underneath, the next Lisbon
cheering kids' crowd
earthquake might bring them to light and their
50. a) pillow for resting (power nap before the fate to justice)
chicken gets served)
53. a) the telegram, reading: „sender: post
50. b) obligatory moustache office Belém do Pará [Amazonian Atlantic port
town], stamped 24.10.1917, Dear daughter,
50. c) white collar girls should not study Fine Arts. What can a
50. d) between the collar ends a shadow picture tell if dreaming is unbound and is
element written down in cords of poetry?“ meant as a
rhetorical question to be answered with
50. e) his shoulder „nothing“, can be taken as a practical one
instead.
50. f) his belly under a white shirt
54. the aim of all spotlights, the extravagant
51. teasing grandma from Amazonia about her
and fly-catching ever-unrepentant student of
Indian descen (mixing north American and
the art of life, no matter what Amazonia
Amazonian indian accounts)
chooses to comment and not understand
51. a) woolen shorts with nappies inside
54. a) pair of cherries
51. b) right North American Indian feather
54. b) extravagant Brazilian diamonds on a
hold up by right hand to mock the
chain
grandmother from Amazonia
54. c) silk glove reaching over the elbows
51. c) left North American Indian feather hold
up by right hand to mock the grandmother 54. d) feather boa
from Amazonia
54. e) locks fashioned to suggest evening
52. Virgílio's mother in ballet shoes toilette

7
54. f) lips red from cherry juice in two monumental wall paintings, in the
feira da exposição of Alpiarça and the
54. g) cherries to decorate her left ear, coming Casa da Caldeira of Correias respectively.
from Brazil she initially did not know that
these berries can be eaten and used them for
decoration purposes
We had departed from Putivl’, south of
54. h) holding the chameleon’s leash (the Moscow at the end of September 2012
with the explicit aim to paint a fresco
chameleon might be of porcelain)
painting against the current regime of
austerity in Portugal. Human conditioning
to the caprices of capital accumulation
means austerity, fresco painting means
luxury of space, time and colours, forms
Description of the setting, the process and
and social interaction, we assumed. In our
the dynamics of step-by-step results in
view from the distant East fresco is the
fresco painting (by Martin)
embodiment of non-commercial non-
commoditised visual synthesis and a
suitable technique to be re-exported to the
Masha, Oktobrinka and me had a long- Mediterranean world from our east
standing invitation to return to Casa da Ukrainian workshops of drawing and
Caldeira dating back to our previous visit limestone layering.
on 26th December of the previous year.
Our dream was to paint a series of oil
studies on canvas of the surrounding
As it turned out, the pleasures and
mountain ridge. We had been living in the
qualities of fresco painting were not
agricultural plain of the eastern Tejo valley
conveyable in the tense political set-up of
for a third of a year. To see the horizon
local politics of the public sphere in
rise so close in front of us with a theatre of
present-day Alpiarça, only months before
hills was like rediscovering that the earth is
a new local election cycle. Consequently,
not flat but round. Crossing the Tejo meant
we found ourselves stuck into a secco
also venturing into what amounts almost to
painting, layering tempera on an
a different country, leaving the perimeter
unresponsive industrial acrylic paint of
of Alentejo extensive agriculture and its
concrete blocks. The size of the object
strong social movement of the past
consigned to us (500 square metres) could
centuries entering into the small-scaled
hardly compensate for the lack in technical
and intensely cultivated, socially
conditions for full-rage mural expressivity.
fragmented dynamic of the north of today’s
So, we resigned of much of our baroque
Portugal. Of course both social dynamics
intentions to paint frugality and anti-
infringe on each other in the border region
austerity for the Alpiarça mural. In
of Ribatejo which makes differences more
documenting the process after a third of a
plastic to study. So, the sensual and social
year, we acutely felt the deficit in
understanding of the rural spaces hosting
realisations in relation to our dreams and
us first south, then north of the Tejo
sort-of-professional longing for realisation.
intertwined as well. Consecutively, our
We were decided to leave the country in a
efforts of coming to terms with landscape,
few days with a two or three days stop
space, social dynamics, friendships and
over at Correias. As expected, we were
polarisations in the current crisis afflicted
again struck by the three-dimensionality of
to the Portuguese countryside materialised
the village landscape literally descending
8
onto us and our comprehension. But in wage labour relation. Every communist
somehow the series of drawings and oil farmer-entrepreneur in Alpiarça has such
paintings, though quite carefully and a multigenerational cash-crop producing
consistently planned for did not match with social pyramid of a proprietor of the lands
the intensity of our sensation of having left and some 5 wage workers. The relations
the plains for the mountains. This go over decades and encompass most
contradiction was heighted by the simple sheres of life. Yet, while Alpiarça had the
and practical hospitality of the inhabitants air of a Midwest entrepreneurial failure in
of Casa da Caldeira. So we prolonged our bad-lands (yet the most fertile of the
sojourn. Still very much influenced by the country in agro-technical terms), our
reserve of the socialising rural south surrounding in Correias breathed the
against the presumably socially atomised cosmopolitan and spookily patriarchal air
rural north, we evolved a more precise of grandeur we do know so distinctly from
understanding in the course of the Russian writers like Čehov, even those
following months. Of course every depicted by Tolstoj and Turgenev and
understanding includes a mis- Levitan, Serov, Venetianov on the pictorial
understanding of its own sort and both side of the vanished isle. Two settings
grow consecutively feeding on each other. materially so closed and thrown together
So there is no finality or ambition of in the current national crisis regime, yet so
passing judgement, just the intention to different in the inspiration they convey.
sketch a fluent state in a broader
evolvement of our necessarily imperfect The social richness and capacity for
social and historical understanding of the empathy and compassion does not follow
current social conflicts and dynamics in mechanically out of the discernible current
Portugal. material setting we succeed in perceiving,
but out of a fond of multi-generational
Quite funnily, the degree of wage labour in experience. Class divides and Class
agriculture, the importance of motorisation conflicts are paramount to those
of transport in the efforts to individualise experiences, but they leave their imprint in
preliminary processing and distribution of so complex and multi-layered ways that
food, in the cases most popular with us we hardly grasp the real possible gain in
organic food are quite similar in Alpiarça establishing classless social relations of
and Correias. Yet, the supposedly co-operation and situational gift
conservative North was somehow so much economies when getting obsessed with
more hospitable and enhancing than the static divisions. Divisions are dynamic and
by declaration more progressive and they can be understood only by
internationalist south. In Alpiarça we were progressing, by mixing with the material
at the disposal and mercy of an all- processes under way and practically
encompassing, all-regulating and in some testing the responsive qualities and
respects all-mighty Marxist-Leninist powers of the social tissues of solidarity in
Communist Party (PCP). They did not action under our strangers’ eyes but hardly
mean to well for us and we did our best noticeable by our coarse and schematic
not to be affected too much, at least in our evolution of concepts and categories for
painting, by the reign of institutional understanding our possible social agency.
formality and impersonal treatment. In And yet, we do not existentialise our being
Correias everything turned out so much strangers here and now. We are equally
more simple. We were guests of what can strangers where we were said to be born
be described an extended family of “to”, where others locate us to “be at
proprietors of the premises and associates home” or similar intentional delusions. Our
9
being strangers is a precondition for century could not see anything better. So
working in every accessible social situation we follow their advice and example.
as if it were the only place we
accumulated experience and skills for in
all previous settings preceding. This More interesting and specific in this
realisation, ripening in April 2013 at realisation than the technical implications
Correias, gets already very close to the of such a choice is the personality of the
compositional basic plot inspiring the hosts to our effort. Anna-Maria and Virgílio
fresco in the exposition site and festive are both pedagogical professionals by
hall of Casa de Caldeira.
vocation and by commitment. It was
Oil paintings can be evacuated, murals enough for me to hear them talk softly and
cannot. Oil paintings need a little special mildly unrelenting with their grown-up
hospitality. Murals need a certain lifelong daughter, Maria who is back from life in
hospitality, no matter how low-key. When the capital on some week-ends to grasp
hospitality for it ends, the mural ends its that being a teacher of professional
existence. So the premises’ holders are training and debut in the late 1970s in
the anchor points of any such pictorial Portugal is a life-long passion. It is not
construction. I am not arguing for painting something you lose in any way retiring or
in commission mode or painting to please eventual leaving a school building for
someone. All this client-servant role game good. We got to know Virgílio as a humble
of the bourgeois époque is by now pretty and well-informed vendor of the
much nullified and sadly out for grabs by agricultural organic produce of his farm. In
the successive collapses and remakes of conversations over half a year he would
mass production cycles. Real innovative not once mention his sort-of aristocratic
conceptual painting is already made of a descent, heir of a veritable castle standing
new social substance, akin to gift (in hidden ruins now) on an impressive hill
economies of past ages and the one for most of the past thousand years.
ahead we hardly know how to describe Nothing of that can be heard in his talk. He
yet, let alone effectively fight for against its would rather take off his cap humbly and
real adversaries all around its humble argue that he is undeniably a Portuguese
beginnings. Arab, his ancestors somehow conquered
and turned into an underclass by the
medieval conquest from the north. We
cannot discern exactly. What we do know
When oil and tempera painting cannot from written sources is that from the
satisfy the expectations for visual gifts beginning of church records the name of
(painters rarely make good gifts to his family is inscribed into the feudal order
anybody, they just make gifts, mainly to of landscape cultivation in this manifold
the frolicking pleasure of their own eyes mountainous region of central Portugal.
and dreams, but that need not at all be What most stroke me in his
separated from social interaction in a communication is the project to propagate
slightly more wider sense) the only organic and labour-intensive land-use with
intensification of pictorial expressivity is fruit-trees valorising irrigation schemes
fresco layering, limestone-based aquarelle and water resources in use since Arab
washes, at least the Italian schools, times in a most charming valley of his
Egyptian antiquity an Maya culture, abounding in sheer miraculous vegetative
medieval and baroque Europe joint by fertility, mostly sylvatic, with “playfully
Mexican social revolutionaries of the 20th pedagogic” means. He invites school
10
classes and organic farmers and he can intensely gardening household of an
show an almost park-like intense extended, intellectually ambitious family at
cultivation of the complex three- the outskirts of Coimbra. Here a never
dimensional landscape to them. From the mentioned Portuguese aristocratic stance
modestly fashioned farmstead bowing is not of a landed property sense but of a
underneath the little village of Correias clearly literal accomplishment over
stretching down to its small river we can generations. Both her mother and father
walk under a palisade roof of living wine. were passionate writer/translators with her
To the left and right are ancient fruits, from father getting the fame (Mário Braga) for
such banal and commonly known ones as their joint immense work of decades and
apples and pears to a so-called European her mother getting a divorce in the end.
nespoli_ and related plantas incógnitas But that’s nothing to stumble over in the
which Masha with her rich late-Soviet deeply secularised making of Portuguese
gardening background finds rather culture, solidified in its practical a-
uncanny to eat. Catholicism in centuries of alliance and
capital mergers with British modes of
When you cross the river and climb the accumulation. In fact, the legacy of Anna-
steep adjacent hillsides, you can oversee Maria’s background is just as rich as the
the farmstead. There are more central and castle holders of the most beautiful valley.
more impressive houses in the little village. It draws from multi-generational
It goes without saying that the owners of intercontinental experiences from family
these ancient building sites alongside with migration to Amazonia and back, colonial
the builders of a baroque palace in nearby service via Goa, Macao to East Timor,
Tremês are somehow Virgílio’s cousins decade-long public functions in pre-1974
and after touring the smaller surrounding Angola and relatives in its capital to the
region with him, it actually seems rather present day and most important a grand-
difficult to be of any landed property or parent from Madeira, descendant of
premises and NOT be Virgílio’s cousin in humble fishermen with a persistent
this area of the country. Of all this passion to cultivate every inch of arable
cousinship, Casa da Caldeira is rather of garden land with para-scientific
the more humble abodes. That seems the measurements and the discipline of
result of a conscious choice. Virgílio would islanders off the African coast, visited by
not mind a scratch on the car he will use hundreds of international vessels every
the forthcoming years, nor an unarranged season over centuries for their export
mess of out-dated tools lying around in vines.
sheds, but the organic apple collection in
his shop will be of local making until high All this would be pretty inaccessible for us
summer months, always up to date and he strangers and we would (a mistake) rather
always willing to document its value for not care to access this fulminant memory
biodiversity to any ignorant visitor of any bank of a cosmopolitan Portuguese
sort. Fitting humbly in with Portugal’s making. I have been living a decade in
liberal understanding of democracy and Poland, yet never succeeded and never
commercial cosmopolitanism Virgílio most really cared to succeed in accessing the
likes to set himself as a humble and sphere of the Cracovian suburbia legacy
precisely calculating merchant of good of autonomy in the Austrian empire, yet
products. Kraków is the Coimbra of Portugal.
Kraków is the burying-place of Poland’s
Anna-Maria, also a retired teacher, has dictator of the May 1926 coup-d’état and
moved in from further up north, an Coimbra the University site giving the
11
necessary contacts to its dictator and has delighted to discover, its empowering force
much ado in the making of Portugal’s May of sharing space and dialogue on the
1926 coup-d’état as well as in opposing forming of a fresco across current wealth
the 48 year nightmare of his grip on the and class divides was in our view opened
country. Kraków suburbs have made for a surprisingly long-term after the failure
possible the literary production of the of the April 1974 revolution. It will rather be
painter Wispianski (wesele) and Coimbra closed in the foreseeable future, we
and its surrounding landscape is in no way sense. Virgílio would rather refute such an
in this Roman-catholic periphery of explanation altogether, he has a soundly
emancipatory aspirations parallel to the critical distance to the 1974 events; even
opus dei headquarters erected against to their anti-religious actions like freeing
them. the Arab irrigation well of his rocky valley
from a Christian conquerors Marianist cult
figure back 40 years. He is still cross about
that. At the same time, he is, as expected
What made this landscape accessible and
slightly more understandable if not in the of a school principal after a revolution, no
Polish then in the Portuguese case was – matter how early aborted in its social
if we look at a very queer angle from the programmatic, definitely loyal to the aquis
former soviet union on this waterside of of 1974. Anna-Maria is of a discernibly
the Atlantic – the coincidence that both more leftist back-ground already and her
Anna-Maria and Virgílio found themselves and her sister’s book-collection of the post
drawn into one of the most vibrant popular 1974-years, some of them procured
uprisings of the last half-century in Europe, through fantastic self-managed co-
operatives in post-revolutionary Coimbra,
the Portuguese April 1974. They both
finished their studies and started their tells of a possibility to move for out into
pedagogical trail after this event changing radical left agency, not dreamt of by her
the country and changing the prospects of father who just flirted with the Communist
international as so many isolated
Europe for a while. Well-noted, basic
reforms in the educational sector were intellectual in internal exile enforced by
started, some say simulated by late Romanic fascisms from Bucureşti to
Salazarism some years before 1974. Of all Rome, Madrid and Havana in the late
sectors under Marceline_ neo-fascist and 1930s and following decades.
pro-European community streamlining, Characteristically, this lasted not longer
Portuguese education was the only sector than 1968, when reporting from Prague
where the process was not reversed again convinced to be able to illustrate some
by the old nomenclature. Yet the popular more details of its later development. The
break-through of 1974 opened a library of the Braga sisters, Anna-Maria
completely different dimension of and Isabel shows a strong Third-worldist
democratising education, far beyond what current, as always in Portuguese visions
European liberal association could during the last half millennium a strong
influx of Brazilian influences (Boal, Freire).
promise.
Nicaragua was so important when
Interestingly, in this glimpse of Portugal lost its agency to German trade
understanding we had, why we could be unions and party-fostering and Brussels
welcome in Casa da Caldeira for more technocrats in the late 1970s.
than a month when coming for a couple of
days only, is a certain sense of finality.
This window opening on a world we were

12
All this was heavily on my mind, reading what a horror. We do have to live the
from 4 in the morning, hundreds of pages consequences of this mass deception
of Portuguese in those first days of April, even if we struggle to keep free of this
when I began drawing oil sketches on fish miscarriage of materialist insight ourselves
packaging in scale for the canvases made for some precious years accumulating a
ready (1:10, then 1: 3,16, then 1:1). debt the now dominant system will teach
us to take serious and to be worked off
I happened to look down the hall we had later in even more unfavourable conditions
situatively squatted with our luggage to come forth.
excess, the travelling painters’ workshop
who had up to then be able to paint so Now, I did what I got used to do when I am
little in relation to their plans for Portugal confused. I said to myself, this is a joke
(just 500 square metres(-:). The perfectly and while the others are still asleep I will
whitewashed wall in the depth of the patiently elaborate a series of 5 times 2
spacious agricultural building under an sketches on a 1:100 and 1:31,62 scale
historic open wooden carpentry supporting respectively. I quickly measured the area
a warmly-coloured roof was flashing in my with the help of some trigonometric
mind and turning into the reproduction of a shortcuts and later found indeed that
rather clumsy Austrian clay painting with errors were just committed in
fainting colours, I had once seen in a overestimating the total height by some 4
Kreidezeit documentation. Maybe this per cent above the actual 5,40. As we
illustrates how important it is for theatre cannot fly, height is always more important
workers to see theatre pieces even if they than width and 1:1 representation on flat
expressively dislike their making and mural paper if not put up horizontally is a
painters to see lots of special solutions to potential source of fatal misunderstanding
most various architectural endeavours, on the spatiality of a future mural site. So,
even if the painting itself is nothing but on the one hand I was lucky to get the
convincing. The influence was slightly subjective proportions more realistically.
more than just negation, or the just too On the other hand, I thus was late in
arrogant, I can do better, guess they will discovering the perfect square body of
not put our work in their catalogue (they graphical reference, which was shaped by
are reserved though we have painted with a building master highly conscious of
their colours and some of their advice for proportions for this economic side building
23 years in well over 100 sites) and get of a past century.
this Austrian patriarchal crap instead,
while they do not even manage to scale Curiously enough the vision I head was
the colour intensity and get lost in blurs referring to the Austrian clay fresco mixed
and allusions of cow warmth of something technique mess more than to the actual
wishy-washy of that sort. Yet this cow-craft width of the space in front of me. Yet, I
of pictomanic Austrian intensity was had carefully glued the best drawing paper
somehow more persuasive in dimensions, I ever found (colour tone Havana) on
I did not grasp in that instant. It is so harder cardboard with blue technical lines
simplifying to speak about negation as a on it for accounting purposes. This allowed
clear-cut business. What you let come drawing with darker tones and white tones
close to you will influence you, make you of different warmth and most dynamic
love it and haunt you ultimately. That’s the greyscale value changes in impulsive
tragic of so many people seemingly to movements. The result was very funny.
them forced to succumb to coercive labour Some variations were explicitly set out to
relations: they end up loving their bosses, make fun of my early morning
13
frescomania, like a giant face reminding of decision making to go for what had initially
the Goya painting to the »Hui clos« of his been but a thought experiment.
private retreat, the so-called Madrilenian
“Casa do surdo”, probably the first secular
fresco whatsoever on Iberian soil if we The preparatory decisions
dispute late Roman imperial secularity.
Participatory preparation

As in many cases before, all 5 sketches

later turned out to be of high relevance, no The main argument for executing a fresco
single idea was refuted in the end, though was to use it as a means of adding the
the selection process created the illusion characteristical dynamics paramount to
for all involved including me that we had village craft(wo)menship to the exposition
“made a common choice”. As a matter of of tools and manual machines arranged in
fact the face was the good-father of the the historic wine workshop. The spacious
bold giant circles. For the first two days, I hall with 15 metres length and 5,40 rooftop
shared the flirt with the funny idea of height is characterised by remarkable
making the long-longed for fresco just here musical acoustics for its emptiness and
only with Masha (and Oktobrinka (-:). basically shoebox proportion outline (no
Masha warned me to make it known to the opera hall design in the world has reached
landlords, because this would, according the shoe box in acoustic quality yet). At
to Russian understandings of social the meantime, natural light enters
etiquette oblige them to consent. After randomly and sparsely through two double
hearing the story of a trip to East Timor, I windows to the north east, each of 07
added the ship sketch for the fun of the square metres, two times 8 glass brick
dynamics. All this had a playful character. I elements each of 0,04 square metres on
was seriously proceeding with the the opposing south west side, yet their
sketches preparing the oil paintings of the light intake being shaded from the fresco
front landscape, though there was surface by the wine reservoir cubes and a
persistent rain these days, luckily slowing glass door system in 6 parts with 6 square
down plein-air realisation and making us metres of glass surface on the north east
realise how happy we were in the side but at a distance of more than 10
conditions we had planned just to touch metres from the fresco surface.
down upon for some hasty hours before
rushing through Europe with our excessive
luggage. It was just when I advanced with
In the first discussions already, the
the big canvas (60x90 cm_) that I noticed
dynamic input agreed upon was to be
the longing for light painting which was
based on figurative elements and action
realised in oil in the first hand sketch. Now,
taken by them, work situations and a
I sensed intuitively that reworking this first
resting base for viewer empathy in the
improvised graphic compilation in colour
form of an open, inviting table, a feast in
deposits of seemingly rather accidental
progress celebrating the fruit of agricultural
structure would take away the freshness of
labour.
the painting. It would create a sticky oily
tapestry (die Ölpest) without being able to
compensate for the loss in freshness. This
impression set the scene for the collective For a week the execution was in
suspension. The sketches had been

14
presented. Virgílio and Anna-Maria had the soviet SovHoz model as people had
opted for project number one of five. Yet, the reliability to be planned for in three
no point of material decision to go ahead working shifts). I definitely did not want the
was reached. During this time I banged moralising or ironic note to become
against the wall and got a profound shock. paramount and throw out other layers of
I told Masha, that the preceding meaning. Thus I took three counter-
construction worker was a unparalleled measures to balance the impression
concrete fetishist and he worked probably helpfully conveyed by Anna-Maria. There
with about two and a half times the optimal was a back-lash making a strict dichotomy
cement concentration in silicate for the work-feast even worse if I embellished the
entire plastering work. Masha advised divide with various means put to our
clearly to drop the project. That was disposition by aesthetic convention. That
reasonable given that we had previewed would have anthropologised the present
some 4 or five working days for execution. and extreme past forms of class divide to a
kind of aesthetical apologetic setting: ones
are just there to labour, others to enjoy
In the preparation of the 5th day shift, their fruits. As soon as this dichotomy gets
when a certain juxtaposition of working into the current of being existentialised or
figures and feasting figures at the table aestheticized, the fresco would loose its
became apparent and a certain ironic note intended multi-layered transparency,
from the bottom figures of day-shift hosting lines of interpretation not yet
number 4 seasoned the overall tendency known to us in the years to come.
Anna-Maria made a remark which could A good fresco on immobile base should
be understood as a critique or a more offer an elaborate landscape for
imploring suggestion than the common exploration by foot. As soon as we plan
enhancement to just go on as pleases. and level highways of interpretation
She said: “its becoming a bourgeois feast through the material proposed, the fixed
now”. I answered with a superficial reply character of the picture acquires a
that there is one shepherd invited to the tyrannical note which is not in keeping with
table. Later, I realised that he has nothing the subtlety of the technique employed. I
on his plate and only water in his glass. I thus took to the following four emergency
wanted the table to have free space, not measures:
be overloaded with goods in supermarket
fashion. There should be a moment of 1. I skipped the table contrary to Italian
suspense: the meal will just be served: the renaissance doctrine to have the viewer
viewer who just entered the hall has not gain a top view of it. The Italian example
come too late, does not disturb the up to Diego Rivera in San Francisco was
company but is just one of the people to put the focal point of flight lines on the
expected to occupy the open places, who level of the average observer’s eyes.
came in just in time. Now, with Anna- Putting this point in the centre of the image
Maria’s remark in mind this became a one- makes the view fly into the picture as an
sided tendency to guide interpretations I equal, inviting to participate in the action
definitely did not want. Of course, class with the eyes on an equal basis. This was
relations of rural Portugal in past and to make the table narrative more inclusive.
present have their imprint on food
accessibility and it was all right to 2. I loaded the last two day shifts with 16
document that some were working while figures instead of just two in the trial fresco
others eating (a phenomena also akin to of the hens’ stable. Thus the dichotomy of

15
working people-eating people is dissolved exclusively as started on a light level in
into a merry chaos of movement, acting, day shift number one. Still day shift 3 and
mockery and situative improvisation. This 4 try to introduce personalities with
was to take away the strain of a moralising respective recreational space to let them
doctrine of opposing work to having food. breathe and explain their presence from a
In fact no environment combines both as bodily dynamic, i.e. explain how they came
well as agriculture. The children’s INTO the picture just a s the viewer might
improvising suggestions were to reopen come into the picture, not only making
the view on the classless faculties of them appear as jokers on a card playing
wo(men) of all positions and socialisations. table a practiced in day shift one. Such
As well as lowering the visual barriers for shifts are, funnily enough, to my mind still
viewer by heightening the focal points, the in keeping with the instauration of an
dynamic mass of children was to introduce overall conceptional tension integrating the
viewers to enter the picture on their own whole picture. This case can be argued for
paths and according to their own liking. the first group of day shift one, the
Shakespearean secularisation of
3. They were now able to join the feast via metaphysical projection to worldly cults:
two stairs (I added a left counterpart which Roman-Catholic monkishness, masonry,
was previously unplanned for, assuming matriarchal sorcery and childish curiosity
that most viewers are socialised into to explore all this in a sober material sense
reading from left to right and not in the [figure number 4] is of a different, a
Arabic or Judaic reading aesthetics). prologue character, like the witch-
4. I changed the table from a flat body to communion preceding the tragedy of
Macbeth.
the giant embodiment of a St. Jacob’s
shell, suggesting the hospitality of a
pilgrims’ abode. In somehow our own
situation as painters was profiting from the Graphic preparation
pilgrim-like status granted to us, being
able to stay or leave according to Fresco realisation in this project has been
dynamics of the visual creation process (a graphically prepared to a degree yet
form of a secularised enlightenment notion unprecedented in the 131 realisations
of perception in the political economy of before. Rather comically, the first sketch in
manual labour on one spot). the series of 5 test launches has been in
scale 1:31,62, though 1:100 was prepared
alongside. All models from this first stage
onwards had 20 marks respectively, 4 to
Another important social intervention mark the angles of the inner ninth surface,
during the painting and re-planning 4 for the inner 25th and 12 for the inner
process was authored by Masha who 13/25th surface of the whole body to be
objected after the first day shift that if painted, thus marking the Pythagorean
continued there will be a terrible overload proportions 1/5 2/5 and 1/3 in all
with personalities not leaving a single dimensions, comprising the diagonal axis.
landscape depth to breathe. I From the discovery of the perfect square
consequently thinned the peopling of the dimensions onwards (when the scaffolding
following, most central day shift to the arrived on the construction site 9.IV) the
extreme, rendering the pastoral sketches (starting with scale 1:3,6, but
conversation muse smaller than I had working down again to 1:10 for the second
initially thought. I took care not to litter half of day shifts) I included two centred
landscape depth with scrub plasticity
16
circles in the model marking: one of radius construction and its limitations put on the
one third of total height and one of one accessibility of the wall to viewers moving
half minus 4 cm in the original scale to through the space of the hall. However
reflect the bottom footer and a delicate left refuting the option made me more
and right margin (top margin being conscious of the fragmenting effect of the
assured by the concentric rooftop due to static woodwork and from this model
the space taken – in well-reflected onwards every representation was
proportional consideration by the building featuring the re-unifying circles as a
craftsmen – by the wine reservoir cubes constructive basic element.
left of the fresco).

There was a brief moment when I hoped

Only after the first throwing series on to integrate Masha’s agency actively into
1:31,62 I diminished the respective the planning and we would have then let
graphic sketching idea and tried to her elaborate the colour dynamics. This
concentrate it on 1:100. This inverse appeared to me an interesting approach to
climbing of scale appeared accidental and scale drawing and colouring separately to
the results did not convince me. The small each other to serve a general line of
repetition rather reminded me of a argument by the fresco in projection. Yet
scholarly exercise to repeat the grand with the offers to participate failing, the
argument in minuscule conditions. The aid option of a separate colour line of tries and
to refine the ideas was minimal, I suppose. errors failed as well.

Instead, I focussed since early morning of

Saturday, 13.IV on short-cutting the whole
The initial sketches 1:100, 1:31,62 were up-scaling process to 1:1 fresco by
already prepared as flat models using the projecting a 1:3,6 fresco trial miniature.
juxtaposition of two material, the ideal a The hens’ stable (lately used for the dog)
prima drawing paper with cardboard offered a surprisingly close miniature
introducing blue tones to balance the model with equal space proportions and
warm prima effect and suggest the light relations, geographical orientation,
exactitude by 0,5 millimetre accidental water accessibility. So after short but
lining (introduced in collage style). intensive watering, I started to paint a
miniature fresco on the corresponding
miniature wall. Part of the wood-work on
I then glued a model 1:10 which top could be imitated in fresco according
reproduced the full cubature of the historic to a standard central viewpoint. The
wine tanks of slightly und 40 cubic metres drawing process and the preparation of a
(in oenological terms 400 hectolitres) as polyester cartone forced me to no longer
well as the roof construction, however put up a row of decisions. Still the overall
ignoring the carpentry modelling in free dynamic was treated prior to any figurative
space in order not to get lost with the rendering, though that came dangerously
dynamics of movement in petty close to be fixed in immobile photographic
reproduction considerations. I was not rendering. Surprisingly, with some ignorant
sure that viewing the model could keep to discipline, I could provide the circle
the precise angles characterising real structure into the colour application. The
space viewing in the hall. Perhaps it would introduction of Iron red which was so
have been helpful to simulate the wooden advantageous in a secco painting in

17
project no. 130 and in fresco limestone in considering what it would be like to lose
project 127 and 128 was not convincing. It left eyesight. Though feeling extremely
may well be that the rather extravagant uncomfortable and uneasy altogether, I
clay content of the final layer velo sand forced myself to utilise the freshly
fraction applied in this region was not prepared velo in the hens’ stable, as I had
favourable to the transparent might of that prepared myself so much suffering to have
red iron reflection body. To the contrary, I it in this perfect shape I could not stand
discovered that the Earth of Cyprus sold in the thought to let the ideal moment get
Bavaria was matching the quality f the past. Here, for the first time, I was
previous quantities bought in Italy from the completely surprised by the slowness of
specialist trade for restoration purposes the drying process. Maybe it was due to
(Phase) and precisely so for the Terra di my intense watering. Maybe the special
cipro natura fredda confection, while the clay component in the velo surface was
natura calda has little convincing preventing oxygen from carbonating the
transparency performance in limestone. hidrated surface layers for a long time,
The decision for this pigment was reducing attack surface from the normal
comparatively simple. Sienna natural was lung-like surface to a considerably
rather unfavourable in the rendering and I smother and more closed plain. Most
tended to through it out, day shift no. 2 probably the two factors were combining
even abandoned it altogether in the end. and even more so later on the real fresco
To the contrary, orange iron oxide 960 did wall I had the problem of extreme, up to 10
a marvellous job balancing the dual cold centimetre strong layers of limestone with
dark influence of ultramarine blue and only occasional and very superficial
Cyprus umbra. Actually little more was carbonisation superseded in 5 layers, so
needed. Funnily, most of the details in the there was in fact a giant mass of hydrated
miniature trial fresco were painted with a lime mud with only millimetres of brick
very little but mid-long-haired brush which behind them to buffer moisture imports.
later got lost in the process, so that the
telegram lettering became bigger than To the contrary a very positive and
intended, which might not be a minus at decisive observation in the trial fresco was
all. the elasticity of the limestone systems on a
wall in regard to the silicate particle body
amalgamated in the two-layer preparation
plastering regime. Obviously, I could be
While plastering adjacent additional quite free to risk to go to extremes in
surfaces to define the surrounding of the limestone concentration without risking
miniature fresco better, I received a stroke visible cracks in the drying process. Here
of lime and sand into my left eye with such as before both the intense watering and
might I had never got before in 17 years the locally specifics of the silicate bodies
with limestone. Though being able to wash ade up by different sand layering
quickly, then through myself into the salted interacted… in this aspect very favourably.
swimming-pool nearby which has a luckily I could thus go for nearly Genova-type
almost physiological salt concentration, baroque “pastose_” brushstrokes. In the
the effect was astonishing. As the eye has following, I went to extremes not only with
so many nerves to the brain, I felt under pure hydrated lime applications on the
shock as if physically caught in a traffic velo but parallel with all 4 types of
accident. For almost three entire days I pigments involved. Of course, this
could not think of opening the left eye extravagant expressivity had to valorise
again and over some period, I was the first moments of open paintable velo
18
preparation, for later colour absorption by of the whole. It was certainly a good
the wall would remain too superficial and decision to evacuate forces from this
the danger of a-technological empty impasse by reducing scale and going for
effects would have blocked such technical completion of fresco painting
experimental moods. approximation instead, yet it might have
been an interesting experience to fully
calibrate the whole design on 1:3,16 scale
Painting the trial fresco I was acutely in a definite chiaroscuro resolution. My
reminded about the value of two-eyed attention to this step was heightened by
the marvellously clear and only slightly
sight. I could possibly not determine how
far the brush was from the velo when dogmatic prose on drawing technique by
painting, because I had effectively lost all Walter Sickert at the beginning of the 20th
three-dimensionality of vision. Interestingly century. He stresses the necessary three
steps of a drawing, while assuring that
enough, I later noticed that quite a number
painting is mainly a drawing exercise in
of personalities created that day in the trial
procedure reflected this asymmetry of only as little colours possible. Step one
eyesight, most prominently so the future would be the tentative search for dynamic
protagonist of the main focus of interest in lines in the movement. Step two the
the whole composition which I modelled rendering of light and body (chiaroscuro),
into being the Brazilian grandmother to step three what he –quite dogmatically in
Anna-Maria, a process which experienced the sticky late British Imperial
some objection by Virgílio who in a authoritarianism permeating the years of
devotion quite interesting to watch his privileged production- calls the
“definite” line. Sickert’s doctrines are
promoted instead his mother in an
intensity of argument which probably permeated not only with Imperial
cannot be understood fully by strangers to mannerisms but worse so with a constant
the specific “Marianismo” created in the machos’ bias, though, even from an
extremely critical standpoint to his highly
backwaters of Roman-catholic
appropriation and distorting rendering of artificial narrative, optimised for social
pre-historic matriarchal legacies. Mash effects in his lifetime, reviewing it allows us
and me were out-rightly sorry to have to sharpen our attention to the steps we
mounted such a potentiality for conflict, yet find necessary in evolving a drawing.
we also sensed that there was no way
back and that we had to go forth with our
iconographic main line to the picture taking Instead of going for the full 2nd step on
in critical objection to consolidate our 1:3,16, I just made dynamic orientation
rendering the main line chosen already. lines on the area of the planned first day
shift. Planning for day shifts proved very
useful and as I had already prepared two
The miniature trial fresco in scale 1:3,6 points for taking decisions on the graphic
was preceded by a slightly larger drawing structure and the day to day repartition of
1:3,16. Very quickly in the drawing the square metres workload, it needed
process which was to give a reliable next to no modification in the following two
chiaroscuro equilibrium for the whole entity weeks. Though I am always suspicious
of the composition if not the colour when I seem to get lost in geometrical
dynamics already, I had noticed that I was preparations, this work of defining the
running into too minute detail, getting lost space for action proved no fetishist
and loosing thereby the integral dynamics “Übersprunghandlung_” (shoving off the
19
pressure and expectation for a necessary Maria was generous to sponsor a full area
creative step by tripling about with polyethylene cartone of 30 square metres,
technical preparations of the step). though this cost not more than 12,- Euros
Preparation and risking a step are always in the end, it was a step I had only once
needed in organic relation, extremes are dared to take… for a much lower number
important to get to know real limits. of fresco square metres in intervention no.
However the juxtaposition itself is too little 43 13 years back. Then, I had retaken the
materialist in comprehension (in Bourgeois cartone line from a casein sketch on the
manner fashioning supposedly “free wall itself. This was not feasible in project
creation” over the abyss of being subdues 132 because there was a number of
in manually mechanic, or a step further calamities with the wall surface in
from Capital to Patriarchal work division preparation, first terribly profound holes,
analysis to reproductive tasks). Such then terribly wet and very slowly drying
equilibriums in a creative collective (even if lime fillings and then previous day-shifts in
there is only one manual executer of a very fragile wet states for many days who
collective decision process) can only be recorded the smallest touchdown of a
understood as extremely dynamic. As cartone fitting process with irreparable
soon as routine regulates there dimension destruction to the fresco painting on their
in the political economy of time, space and surfaces.
purchase power in acquiring resources,
we lose the live thread making good
pictorial production possible. There cannot So in the following step up the scale to 1:1
be a Fordist preparation to complex preparation, I simulated the entire wall on
painting tasks. Yet, and in this I follow the
the floor of the hall before. This allowed to
convincing and hilariously open-minded draw much more fluently, try out various
excellency of mural schools in the Soviet arrangement in 1:1, given that Anna-Maria
Union up to 1934 (really exceeding in sponsored an abundance of cheap
sustainable quality the Mexican
concept paper to cover the 25 square
subjectivist campaigns of their metre floor under preparation and work on
contemporaries in a prolonged second it with scissors and sticky tape in collage
period ideology [popular front from below] type luxury.
while the ComIntern centre was moving
from the third [class against class] already Already for the first day-shift, the cartone
toward a 4th [popular front from above]): plastic marker line on polyethylene was
there can be astonishing results in very much a process in the sense of
collectively balanced approximations to Sickert’s number 3: evolving a “definite
Fordist workday intensities. Though either line”. In my theoretical doctrine, this
way there should be little illusion on the carone line gets actually two more
distribution of benefits from such corrections: one by recopying it with (a
intensification; serious social fresco technique now finalised) with the back
painters will probably continue to work real points of best-shaped brushes, much
time 16 hours day shifts with no holiday for better than the butter knife of 2000, on the
a very long time to come through future half-morbid velo in the process of finally
class struggles. drying into painting consistency.
Unfortunately, there is too much nerve-
flattering actually in this final stage
The ideas formulated by Sickert reconciled prolonging preparations for the actual
me with the cartone elaboration (Anna- fresco painting into unbearable length to

20
still correct or reinterpret major parts. Very in a socialisation environment of
often spontaneous corrections while commodified glancing, it can really be the
recopying with mechanical pressure to the only last resort to drive home the point
velo through the polyethylene surface about some materiality of bodies (Judith
dynamics (modelling the lime mass when Butler will surf on the computer screen
drying is not homogeneous [it never was fashion through Hegelian minds on 6
during no. 132] in a day-shift and some continents and re-convince them that there
parts are actually too wet to assure an is none such materiality, I remain open to
immaculate take-off of the polyethylene be convinced by her if that is what
from the velo surface after drawing). feminism needs to make a point; (Judith
These dynamics are extremely mind- Butler in Bodies that matter_) Curiously
blowing, the cartone is actually being enough, when the delicate Hegelian
pulled to and fro in the order of a whole idealist Butler found herself constrained to
centimetre and it would be sheer horror to choose a cover motive for an somehow
imagine I would do that to the lime surface essentially material book, she choose to
through an non-transparent paper cartone reproduce the mural pattern of a rare
(how brutal to imitate Renaissance fresco document of matriarchal life on our
necessities at Warsaw academy, well, it is past planet).
their proverbial hunt for penny-economies
as well, same producing those brush-
rattling sandy rough-surfaces, as the So at this point, when contouring
workshop master delights in having saved retransforms into the materiality of bodies
some more decagram of limestone from a (better not put it to the edge by dropping
student’s reach, Academic production has
the word “Judy” in this effort to convince all
such distorted and unbecoming political but her) on the fresco surface we have
economies in almost every minute detail finally left the realm of happy preparation.
that I rather would not like to work therein, The following is a matter of some few
in Madrid neither, but that is to be verified).
minutes of grace: the actually painting and
repainting up to 4 times. That’s definitely
another chapter. Because first, we have to
During elaboration of the first day shift clarify the process of…
cartone, I accidentally found that the
plastic writer line can be effaced from its
polyester carrier material by a mere wishy-
washy movement with soft cloth. That
brought me much closer to elaborating a Materially constructive preparation
“definite” line meriting its Sickert labelling
in a certain sense. Of course, defined
extensions in flat space are the death of
Fresco painting functions around a body of
living painting and there has to be the
water. There is eventually a silicate body
most vivid reinterpretation of such skeleton
you need to mechanically hold the water
rattling once we have the line play as a
and MOST IMPORTANT to buffer away
shadow game in the surface and translate
excess water at a first impact moment and
it into brush dynamics and colour hues.
render it back to the surface over a
But there must be something to this black
desirably very, very long period afterwards
nylon stocking frenzy as it has persisted
(on ceilings with no absorption to the top
throughout a century now: contouring is
72 hours are very normal, and that is
not always the effacing of the living body,
about the extreme ideal, upper extremes
21
are limited by simple closed limestone metre. It looked like sculpture’s work in
surface evaporation). Evaporation and basalt, with every stroke of the hammer
intake by the profundity of a wall or ceiling winning a further millimetre of free capillary
are so excessive in relation to our water surface ready to absorb water actively. Not
consistency needs for a sol-gel body that we weren’t getting anywhere but this
responsive to fresco brushstrokes that we would take a full week of incessant
need a chemical source of water on the banging and turmoil for all people living
spot which is most luckily the same nearby. So after some logistic difficulties, I
substance tearing the so-gel-continuum got a 18 kg pneumatic hammer of 2 KW.
most slowly towards a window forced on By the law of impulse, it through me as
mud-situation: the carbonating limestone much through the hall as it hit the
over hydrated lime. concrete. This law was becoming really
trubbling at 5,40 metres heigt above
ground on a scaffolding which oscillated
accordingly on top of its second storey.
In the first 14 years, actually until
Salzwedel in 2011, I thought fresco Luckily at this point the young future civil
painting is about lime dynamics. Nothing engineer Maria had not yet disspated her
can be more misleading. Actually it is assessment rumour that the whole
really about water dynamics, so in Judith structure of the antique roof was to come
Butlers sense, I am slowly moving towards down due to wall destabilisation. This idea
a more bodiless comprehension of the was haunting her parents just later, when
material peel of the body we are so everything was gladly over and done with.
concerned about here. And after a series of a half hundred hits,
the concrete mass would eventually give
way. But not getting the concrete off the
wall, that was possible only on rare
Acrylic paint is clearly the enemy of water occasions when the underlying bricks
and its blocking stupidity in construction were burnt at too high a temperature, their
physics, though it is open to diffusion as consistency approaching glass and their
the marketing experts in corporate service colour changing into black. All other more
are keen to demonstrate manipulatively to red bricks were so firmly fixed to the
sell under restoration regulations (German concrete plastering under bunker formula
Bauordnung now using the diplomatic that it was inevitable to chuck off a layer of
slander “difussionsoffen” instead of the the bricks to get anywhere and thus get
precise requirement “Silikat- bzw. the acrylic cover out of the hall. The bricks
Kalkgebundeneerdfarbsystem”), is topped were in an Iberian fashion of a very hollow
only by sulphurous plaster. In the case of and thin making. This would seriously
no. 132, there was acrylic paint on the affect their ability to enhance capillary
concrete plastering and this was the movement of water horizontally and thus
starting point of a three week 16 hour a made them almost invalid as a buffer. As
day ordeal. The craftsmen had promoted it we later saw, building lime bodies on them
stressing a lime component which I did not layer by layer to prepare the painting
find, neither in the white surface painting process proved almost as problematic as
of his, nor in his obnoxious plastering. plastering on outright moisture blockers
Funnily, I completely mis-estimated the with no buffering capacity at all such as…
effort needed to clear off this combined an acrillic surface. Having gained little for
superfluous concrete power. After 4 hours the water regime we aimed at during
of incessant banging on the wall, I had painting, we nevertheless had a good
been able to clear less than a square
22
anchoring of our layers in the wall With the help of Virgílio for transport, I
combined with the possibility to build up mobilized some 5 square metres of broken
massive limestone buffer capacity in the historic red tiles to the construction site.
course of a long drying process. After watering them for several days, I
would smash them manually and thus
While Diego Rivera regularly used goats’ obtain pieces to stuff individual holes with
hair for difficult fresco prime layers, wee after plastering. The problem was that
took to pine needles. Under the influence these bricks stuck out of the level aimed at
of the high ph_-regime by the surrounding for final plastering just as well as they filled
active lime, they were soon surrounded by the holes, it appeared. All in all there was
yellow and lightly greenish migration of too much logistics and the end result
organic substances into the drying never precise enough. This technique I
limestone. This migration of colouring and learnt in Eastern Poland in 1997 is really
potentially acidifying substance could have rather good to save lime mass. Uniramous
a potential impact on the fresco surface in sharp gravel of under 2 cm of size can do
the future as needles were planted so the job with more precision.
densely in the first two lime layers and thy Characteristically, I underestimated the
had an astonishing length up to 20 cm, so need of such gravel and filling with a
that they systematically stuck out of the mixture of different sands by half when
second last layer. I then cut them with a starting the plastering. In spite of achieving
pair of scissors. Nevertheless on a certain inclusion of air space especially
plastering the velo on a rather soft basis, in the depth of holes (air content of the
the movement would promote other mass would have been much higher,
needles’ endings to move out and stick out actually up to 50 % when not using a
of the final layer. There are about 14 such traditional cement mixer but a hand
incidents I noticed. It would have been bad “Quirl”_ mixer) the need for material to fill
for the final layer consistency to cut them holes came close to a ton.
right away, so I left the task for later. Once
the fresco painting was catching the The day shifts were prepared in different
visionary attention altogether, these moisture regimes, with the first in the most
elements disappeared and posed no point moist and problematic regime: big
of distraction anymore, so I decided not to saturated hydrate lime corpus with only
risk surface scratches by cutting them… very superficial carbonisation and almost
and even cutting them would have just no buffering performance. Though I waited
limited their length sticking out. As long as up to 72 hours before applying a new layer
I avoided touching the painted surface, the (in a dryer regime 2 hours is just fine) each
needles would continue to poke out. In mechanical impact would just shift the
spite of these surprises, I was glad to have whole mass of previous plastering. Of
included this structural element in the first course this effect could have been avoided
two layers, thus as long as the lime by just keeping the water regime more
content did not drop under 20%, the gravel precarious. And that is exactly what
in solution would be marvellously happened involuntarily on the higher
stabilised once applied, i.e. the moment of edges of day shift 1 (most negative
application would pretty well coincide with impact), 2 and 3. By the time of day shift 4
a quite irreversible transformation of the I had the necessary experience with the
plastering mass from sol to gel in the abnormal situation to counteract this with
terminology of physical chemistry. Other an additional, effectively 5th layer of lime
techniques of solidifying a reluctantly plastering in between on the fast drying
carbonating mass were less convincing. spots. Though from the first day of
23
watering I placed special attention on the though I now replaces calcinated water
higher edges of the wall, they were with pure water. Only in the lift upper
constantly drying out faster. While the fringe of the 4th day shift, I finally adopted
lower 95% of the brick surface changed the strategy to introduce a water-
colour irreversibly after the first half hour generating cushion in form of a repeated
moistening too deep red like brick under second last layer plastering on an area of
water these upper fringes would eventually some 4o x 5o cm. I did not include the
shift back to light dry red in 2 or three right periphery of the fresco. The
occasions, though I started and ended difference can be clearly seen in the
every watering session with just those painting result. As with so many difficulties,
problematic 5 %. In the first day shift, as it is only the effort to surmount and
the whole mass dried in 12 hours much circumpass their dead-locks that will
less than normally in half an hour with an create a wholeness and consistent
optimal buffering system, the upper fringed outward appearance of the final result.
would get three consecutive layers of Any outward appearance is in the end the
calcinated water without pigment for re- more or less successful sublimation of the
establishing an artificial moisture result with such elemental difficulties. So
equilibrium. At this stage I could not apply the idea evolving in the course of the day
the cartone without heavy risk of shifts to revalue the idea of a giant ship
scratching the extremely soft lower and view it from above made the fringes
surfaces. I did not want to paint without into waves and oceanic water, so the
having the overall sketch, especially the white stars blurring its ultramarine depth
giant circles for orientation as I want each were just what was needed… in fact a
brushstroke to correspond in length, width, structure hardly possible to be attained by
intensity of colour and impulse of conscious effort on an ideally buffered and
application, in inner dynamics and bending moistured (wined and dined) fresco
to a reliable sensual knowledge of the preparation. The uniformity of fringe drying
entire wall-painting. The effect of the brush now creates a unity of the rendering of
moistening was not convincing. On wave around the sailing ship seen from
applying the first ultramarine hue there above and the steps of the Mexican
was a highly irritating tendency of the velo pyramid to the left (day shift no. 3).
to reject the colour in a sparkle of then Interestingly, the deck structures at the top
shiny dots. If was as if rejecting water, a of day shift no. I show, how the Cyprus
clear sign of drying. Repainting would earth pigment has such a power of
hardly alleviate this phenomena and it transparent covering that it is rather
would get me into a secco painting modus immune to the microhydrophobic spot
which would infest the bordering lower structure it has come to lay upon. Whereas
parts were fresco painting mode was still the adjacent water surface is broken in
very much appropriate. After that irritating sparks, i.e. sprinkles of dynamically
experience, I assumed that the error was moving water, the deck is, though light and
to take calcinated water. I imagined that thrillingly transparent in appearance, of a
there had been a carbonisation and continuous structure suggesting a wooden
crystallisation process at certain surface plank world of consistency and
spots which acquired an out-rightly continuous, though fancy, rhythm. This
hydrophobic character during subsequent adventure shows that physical preparation
moistening over the course of the day. But is an integral part of the creative process.
alas, the next two day-shifts did not It shows the power of liquidating class
behave any better on their upper fringes divisions between assistant and painter,

24
building crafts(wo)man and white-collar It proved excellent to have the entire
draughts(wo)man, which was so cartone attuned to the entire wall to drive
paramount right into the last big fresco out any material inconsistencies and
volumes in the world movement of the arts define all borderline orientation on the
in 20th century Mexico. The Riviera San polyester body within the established
Francisco School of Art fresco places the standard of precision of half a centimetre.
Latin villain in the position of the deus-ex- Never again did the whole cartone meet
machina exercising unquestionable with the whole wall. It was positively
pictorial power from his controlling centre unnecessary. I cut up the cartone, with the
over the periphal manual workers in the consistent wholeness present in the
symbolic banality of phallic brush mastery. special relations defining the two
A new quality of social revolutionary dimensions interesting us in its use.
movement had to evolve a new quality of
classless social fresco scenarios. And that The five heads on the edges of the inner
might be one of the reasons why Masha circle and also their vertical anti-thesis in
intuitively shrank away from joining the the form of the round edge of the crane
mere painting process in the following and its two wheels hanging down were all
after the coarse odyssey of physical prefigured as trees or round-shaped
surface preparation extending over almost scrubs in all preceding drawings and most
three weeks before. prominently so in the miniature trial fresco
1:3,6.

The overall idea was to introduce the

vertical quality of the landscape behind the
wall to create depth inside of the wall
painting. But stressing the circle line would
have made the mountain take a round
Elaborating a layering structure a fresco
shape and the depiction would have
The dynamic of working the limits of a day- become illustrative and lost its potential
shift transparency. Transforming the graphic
forms of trees into corresponding heads
The first day shift was born out of a the edge of the circle was being drawn
pragmatic haste. I wanted to see it closer to the observer. This tendency is
materialising and I noticed that I would get epitomised in the apparent contradiction
lost in paper model worlds if I continued to between the size of figure 1 and the upper
go through the chiaroscuro composition of figure of the 3rd day shift on half the scale.
the whole in paper simulation before. It
proved just right to construct the two giant
circles on the soil in the cartone system of
I wanted to create immediate presence,
reference. A few points, on the average
three to each day shift, most of them incurring perspective contradictions was
shared, the central point (though about 3 desirable in a certain measure. The two
cm too much to the right and four too animals A and B were initially meant as a
much to up, because the desolate black cat springing and a white cat
underlying brick structure would not offer observing. Springing was also the abolition
any hold for a screw in the precisely of perspective, the transfer in space which
geometrical centre of the wall) even 4 the observer makes in the opposite
times by the day shifts number 1,3,4 and 5 direction. The figure no. 1 was meant from
anchored on it. the start as an essential character of the
donkey`s voyage in Lucien, Photis. As to
25
her Macedonian-Greek name, she was water molecules and clay structures on the
getting strong front light from the actual micro-level of producing relatively brush-
window. She has a saucepan on her head resistant wet in wet surfaces.
(1a). In the Roman literary source she is
described as a domestic slave to a The tail of the cow in spring (the springing
landlady. In daytime she expected to work cow) was too transparent and not strong
with the saucepan in the kitchen. As Afro- enough in relation to the body as covered
Caribbean music celebrates the night is by the section of the first day shift after the
the only time, slves have granted to their first calligraphic sketching essay. I then
own priorities. The night of a slave’s life retook it later with Cyprus earth and the
inverses the order, there is hardly a transparent might to create thinned and
command relation between the two condensed ails throughout a single brush-
meeting. Critically reviewing, I think her stroke were surprising. However, I still
fingers are too childish. She should have muse whether the colouristic differentiation
more mature and experienced hands. In was really justified, whether the second
the end it is her “magic” which catapults line was still too little dynamic in the
the donkey into his/its odyssey. Charms calligraphic condensation of its context.
and animal impulsivity are related in the Funnily, the evolution of this detail nuance
antique text source. When reading David cannot be explained without the German
Graeber’s “Lost People” I wondered why culinary stereotype of
he does not decipher the language of “Ochsenschwanzsuppe_”, a childhood
charms more materialistically into a memory of a peculiar taste, which was
political economy of slightly unmentionable recalled while preparing the day shift in a
intimate relations dynamics. This could radio coverage of the culinary Olympics at
leave aside many of the habitual Freudian Erfurt by Frank.
terminology which has nowadays become To understand the evolution of figures in
reified charm language itself. Of the spring several colour shifts it could be helpful to
cow (C) underneath, I knew next to
document the succession on colour
nothing before. My long quest for its layering in time. The miniature trial fresco
definite line with countless effacing of had helped to establish a settled order of
preliminary tentative lines on the polyester colour intervention, which funnily enough
cartone had the effect that the calligraphic did hardly ever need a step back to a
movement was placed with a surety not colour already used. The first day shift
always at my disposal on the extensively helped to consolidate this choice and it
wet surface, retreating slightly but if was kept up throughout the whole
handled with care not too much as to process. From day shift 3 onwards the
seriously disrupt the absorptive power of introduction of strong white hues of pure
the surface. In fact I introduced the highly lime in a transparent intent on already pre-
concentrated ultramarine strokes much established contours gained new
earlier than I had planned to encroach on momentum which is not present in the
the lower regions of the day shift and to
previous day-shifts on such central spots
my amazement they hold fast. This might as for example faces.
as well be related to the unusual clay
content of the last layer which smothers
the surface and breaks carbonisation but
at the same time establishes a preliminary Day-shift II
holding arrangement (wassergebundene
Was marked by an almost ironic distance
Decke_) with the strong capillary link of
to the over-the top constructionism of the
26
previous intervention (Überbauironie). I necessary counter-weight to becoming so
used the repressive call (no more figures) engaged with Portuguese local matters as
to slash open space for the central part. In in the circles thus substantiated in day
the end, I had placed just as many figures shift II.
(9) as before, but the area covered was 40
% larger. I went lower in picture geometry
and this direction taken risks the ironic
Italian expression “terra terra (earth,
earth)”. There is obviously one earth for Day-shift III
every foot and we are clearly continuing to
walk, though not in the sky or classical A turning point for figurative dynamics.
literature personage any more. Once Only hours before starting to paint on the
having descended to terra terra, I explored fresco surface left to dry for many hours, I
the field (its rhythmicity in olive tree took the risk in this impatient moment to
populace) its rise to the horizon line on the reverse the whole outset of figure
mountain top and then the navigation composition of the whole project. I wanted
theme, a ship seen from the far top rafts to have nobody present any more to just
and even a bit higher, actually the ship is represent or just fill in fill up or shut up, I
trailing slightly behind us deep down wanted agency, immediate presence,
underneath in the ultramarine blue sea. dynamic contradictions to the point of
This development was never planned for rupture with anatomical tolerance towards
before the actual execution of day shift distortions our experience judges as still
one suggested such possibilities. Its most normal. I was curiously satisfied how this
radical coloristic consequences were mighty unrest settled the shepherd (really
already prepared for in the miniature a female shepherd) at the table which was
fresco trial of the hens’ stable weeks not yet even clear in outlines and could
before. But this dispositive had remained have become anything from flat to round,
empty. Now it was suddenly filled: water just as the vision of the world in 1350. No
was streaming in to fill it leaving the colour wonder that association and projection
conception untouched. In the end, our was now going haywire with fig. 31
stance in Portugal was to be a preparation passing from being the Polish artist Marta
for migrating to aid the Bolivarian Radziszewska_ from Rosachata South of
Revolution in Venezuela. We had perfect Warszawa-Wilanów to Mathilda, a US
practice with the European mainland guest at Rostock convergence centre
version of PSUV PCP in Alpiarça, preparing against G8 2007 with us. Marta
temperate Portuguese winter for preparing has remained in my mind, based on
to live through permanent tropical summer, memories of 1997, reshaped by Karol
and the solitude of Atlantic coastal Sulej’s strong opinions in March 2000 as
provinciality shared by both the colonies on the one hand a rather clumsy character
and the colonising of past centuries. of nouveau-riche family success always at
Portugal as well as Galicia are but the top of Academic patriarchal esteem,
extensions of overseas colonies which employing some occasional tricks to keep
have outgrown their colonisers’ mother her rather weak top position. On the other
lands in importance, dynamics and hand, she has struck no easy compromise
perspective. The ship and our glance engaging with Andrej from Biała Podlaska
preceding its stormy advancement towards in a creative conversion of enormous
these hegemonic territories on the other potential, then breaking up, relieving
side of lake Atlantic appeared to me the Andrej into an epitomic of hasty hunt for
ready-made success in the dollar sphere
27
of Warsaw employment. Posing as a cast in an iron knit’s apparel. The initial
commercial “Art director”, he had to take to sketch on 1:3,16 when the figure was still
using a wristband made of a bicycle chain, a rather male and subservient shepherd of
probably rather inconvenient to sleep with. Ribatejo, a person mostly drawn in to
Yet Mathilda (a pseudonym) from present the silhouette qualities of the
Madison/Wisconsin, drifting towards a regional cap was read by Masha and
West coast scientific career underpinning Anna-Maria independently as somehow
her dissent with the social status quo is medieval in expression. As it has proved
rather on the opposite of potential favourable to do with shades produced by
evolvement. How funny, she has Polish architectural space, which are there
background as well. The French agent of anyway if we do not remodel everything, it
keeping equality equilibrium (fig. 32) is is not ill-advised to just underpin such
curiously enough very much modelled tendencies with hue interposition. Very
after a mural painting I have probably seen surprisingly, the Cyprus earth proved at its
first in Autumn 1983 and last in summer maximum performance throughout the
1990. It was presumably painted by a whole process of six days’ final painting in
French guest. It had a dynamic I since these two minutes when I transparently
then associate with Delaunay and cannot cast it over a rather mean blue cut-out in a
possibly discern from a very general terribly wide brush (25 cm). As first noted
impression of French-labelled excellence with the new generation of Spinell_
in bourgeois painting. Though, I refuted pigments around 2000, the moment you
the use and idea of the room adorned and, drop pigments of superb quality and
to my mind, insincerely decorated with this preparation into pure lime water and start
painting, a room for student’s self- with a fresh brush, you get a most
employment, a pseudo-liberty determined fortunate uneven and thus pointed
by class schedule inconsistencies forcing expressivity of collocations, which are
to bridge “Freistunden” well into the random and have to be dimensioned
afternoon. A room still oppressed by the similar to using a breeze with the help of a
stench and sweat of alienating sail when you know it is acutely short to
authoritarian pressure by the superiors’ last. Satisfaction with the 4 figures
class (the teacher class) whose increased top down, so the sitting model
oppression had to be blasted together with shepherd was the luckiest strike. It was
the building facilitating its enforcement. I ready in less than a minute and unlike
never really carefully looked at this mural. most other surfaces I proved disciplined
It was certainly concerned with cinematic enough never to retouch it. It was at once
motion and had lavishly dynamic figures, a cast together with the drought oxen’s
certain superficiality of impressionist horns and decorative flower compounds
making clearly superior to every post- (G, F 34. e) and f)). The argument to
medieval iconographic rendering appease my desire to remodel after the
attempted at by locally-bred hobby orange iron oxide hue set the ultramarine
embellishers of class-room oppression all silhouette in special relations was that this
around. Though I took care never really to resembled an Austrian caravan dweller,
look at it, for ideologically I refuted it, it actually dating with a hippie at
nevertheless became the very proto-type Konigsstuhl_ near Salzwedel, who
of a mural realisation, a mode of spanning occasionally posed as a shepherd and
contradictions towards gently giving in on really sells lambs to Muslim buyers in
the enemy class. This shepherd standing berlin and Hamburg. She spent a whole
is quite obviously a lady, her figure seems evening cooking out a heart-shaped detail

28
of her caravan’s motor in a regular cooking direction of optimistic moves of any
pot. First meeting her, I could convince her observers’ eye-balls up-right reading (from
to have her improvise on the guitar to my left to right, always assuming Greek/Latin
fiddling nuisance and that bliss of letter schooling prevails, does it?) and thus
convergence could never ever be topped being carried up and away. The day
later, so I left her on the lime as she first preceding the shift was 25th of April and I
appeared on it. felt very spooky that we did not join
celebrations on a more public level. So
here it was to be recreated: the public
concern, we had obviously missed out the
Day-shift IV
day before. We had heard a lot of stories
At the half of realisation, I decided for a instead (unfortunately in English and some
major break and three entire days of French, not in Portuguese, so they arrived
regressing to new modelling efforts on a at our minds white-washed for
much smaller scale down to 1:10. The international use and generality). To
provoking point for this major step back counter-balance this, my faculties to
was a certain critical uneasiness with the render a distanced and light-handed
legs of figure 33 already on 1:1 pencil characterisation were at their height. No
sketching which clearly seemed to indicate shift shows class divisions and proletarian
to me that I was terrified by the scale agency so clearly as this. It was an
rather than rejoicing at its vast open achievement I had long aimed for, but it
landscape of evolving possibilities (the was mainly the result of a compensational
pragmatic doctrine goes currently: intention (compensate for our failure to
possibilities only evolve if we put the engage in a more societal realisation of
constant rearrangement of our fragmented the 39th birthday to Portuguese
arsenal of artisanal faculties to a more emancipation).
adequate use in material processes in
relation to an inquiring and socially broadly
shared planning effort).

The result of the refocusing and scaling Day-shift V

down to scale up again was a completely
new freshness of figure dynamics for
rendering the volatile contradictions I
considered to be of such a high value for Was started with the easiness of a joke,
the people potentially having a look at the plastering preparation was already
intentional mess I was to create at the receding, I could store away many items
bottom of the painting. previously littering the painting front. I
span clear blue graphics from one end to
the other and never really retouched them
in contrast to all previous shifts. The
However the first intervention was high up degree of refinement and finalisation, of
(day shift no. IV). It had to counter-balance almost trans-figurative visionary intensity
the combined achievements of the of day shift no. IV was not to be repeated.
opposite extremes: dynamic and I did want no inflation of thrill and magic. I
monumental figures, decisive action, wanted clear and simple narrative and it
architectural space and desirably a more turned out to be blue. By mere
convincing narrative for the upper parts coincidence the Italian medieval fresco
than in shift no. III, for this was the brush type used that day had not been
29
lying around any time before, all its triangle shapes when the bent under no.
homologous brothers and sisters had been 34. a) is really moving high up – never
too badly washed and stiffened with oil planned for, never conceived,
residues, so I did not dare to use them on contradicting a row of other necessary
the utterly fragile lime surface. So, this was manners of viewing the situation which are
the day to start and I immediately say that also necessary, even more so, because
the laconic qualities of this fabulous fresco the table has to be Ptolemaic, nothing else
brush type does really need no retouching. is modest enough for our human
I also wanted to make gradient between experience. Of course the earth is flat.
shifts and areas palpable. So I retouched 99,9% of our lives is just fitted to this
only rather to stress the a-prima conception, nothing else occurs to us if not
expressivity of the whole: the lips, 4 studying the travels of Magellan or hitting
cherries, some fingering of the left hand (I our head against the absurdities created
always doubted whether this was readable by the pretentions of a counter-Greenwich
really as an anatomically plausible and a border of date. So the fist holding the
genuinely lively dynamic as it had to be. glass of water is really sinking into a mass
When Masha proposed that I should make of foam rather than a shell-surface. It is, as
the fond behind the table darker (she had Russian goes “nelepy”, in German it is
been opposed to the round table and “albern (sily, unbehaving, uncough)” and
wanted the flat, the Ptolemaic version to that is rather not what I am heading for
be retained) I answered curiously, that the when painting (as it goes there all the time
area underneath the ox’s horns (G) are the anyway, so I rather put emphasis on
Victoria lake district in full equatorial contrary elements).
blossom, they shine with light, these
regions are the origin of the Nile and many
other rivers, I mockingly argued, they
should not be shaded, every little plot of
them is too important for the whole Day-shift VI
perimeter downstream to mud the water,
shade the clarity of graphic distribution
initiating from that little region. She
Of the whole complex 38 to 41 the V-th
laughed and I later bent a St. Jacob’s shell
day shift had no real clue, they mainly
form allusion in triangle form into this
evolved only during the VI-th day shift
delicate part. Luckily the risky touch turned
when painting was leaping backward. I
out quite transparent. Its counterpart
thought this little transgression of
between figure 34 and 37 became more
technological discipline (painting on lime
rigid and less transparent and for a
surface with more than sporadic intentions
dynamic that I not bad. I am still shivering
36 hours after applying the last layer,
at the risk I then took, there had been no
when carbonisation progress forces
planning for the operation and it was of a
absorption to become superficial if
suspicious ideological origin to impose the
moisture regime is not supra-optimal)
triangles to the round table, but it then
necessary to undo the arbitrary
happened to settle in an acceptable
interruption of the door and reconstitute
manner. I am not really fascinated by the
the integrity of the two circles.
results, there si something sobering me
looking at it. I do not quite know what. Of
course the centre of the giant shell form is
only correctly defined by the linearity of the Funnily enough, it was not until the very
last day shift when Masha and me ceded
30
to fear that the big circles (inner and outer) manner, leaving two thirds of the space
would not match in the end and could not available for typographic silence. But I did
be concluded, though they were heading not find that brush, it turned up only a
to each other with the panned for week later very close to the place where I
accuracy/inaccuracy of half a centimetre at ha so desperately wanted to use it. So, I
each moment of time. went ahead with a bigger brush. The
letters were now fitting on the page with no
typographic elements of silence
So the sixth and last day shift had to do whatsoever by sheer acrobatics of
hampered brush-strokes. Masha assured
the job of putting it all together again. In
the miniature trial I had just left out the that that was the ideal way to do so. I still
kids’ commune down at the cat table. My doubt whether that is actually the case, but
left eye was so terribly hurting then, I could I cannot compare with any more
successful versions. Writing is doubtless
not think it funny to populate the lower
the all-powerful enemy of drawing. Writing,
right end with kids doing the feast better
than their bigger companions in the this arrogant exposure of one-
picture’s centre upstairs. Now, I had to dimensionality, is leading the eyes of
counter-balance this choice of a interested folk to follow a pre-conceived
convenient silence. And it turned out to be guiding direction instead of putting offers
noisy to the utmost. I was so exhausted at their disposal. No wonder, interactive
with painting, repainting, repainting and surfaces of computer applications proceed
repainting those 17 figures engaged with by graphic optionality instead of
for the last go, that I hardly saw any sense authoritative one-dimensional narrative. I
took care to prepare the telegram’s
to the whole chaos any more. But I
intuitively felt that the visual entrance lies surface (53. a)) as brush-ridden as
not on the left but on the right stairs, the possible, making fun of the future writing
one which can be used by the eyes in to the utmost, making it unimportant and
ephemeral, a mere impotent littering of a
reading direction (always assuming that
the majority of centuries under Arabic space already modelled to the utmost with
reading experience on this region as its own graphic depth, with a dynamic of
compared to the centuries of its reversal its own from warm to cold, from “daughter”
after the sectarian Christian conquest has to the insinuating question when asked in
left less an imprint on the movement of our a rhetorical, myogenic brutality of
eyes which is perhaps a big delusion). But authoritative life-guidance, we inherited in
depth of space can only be created so many aspects from the infamous
situatively by chaos, by overwhelming our brutality of 19th century colonisation.
senses of orientation and thus make the As to the three attractions above, the
eyes entangle in a game of special maître des plaisirs’ holding of the
distinction when there is in fact a mostly pomegranate, fig. 14. a), the chameleon, I,
flat surface informing them. The limits of and its fly, H, as well as the local fruits
the medium itself are its possibilities, its arrangement, fig 14. b), their rendering is
major means of expression, its passion accidental and deeply unsatisfactory to
and redemption. me. Of course the chameleon has been
prepared in ironic forecast by the line
issuing from the Brazilian grandma, fig. 54,
I went about the entire farm for 20 minutes but its thrust on the telegram as on the fly
to search a brush to do the writing of the is over-emphasised and thus tends to be
telegram in a concise and miniature static. The whole animal was so messy
31
(Masha: “chistaja kasha”, Russian for: against us. Our life is short and our
pure (burnt) oat porridge), that I recast it chances to out-trick the trap set for us are
with that August Macke tick of seeking minimal… so we try.
silhouette assurance, a highly limiting
means of saving figurative consistency.
The whole mess could now at best pass
as a porcelain figuration. Unfortunately
there are traits pointing to worse, a Tentatively summarising the social
cartoon rendering, a – beware Disney process of visual production
production, it’s terrible. It’s not what I
wanted, planned for, prepared for, such Observations on the dynamics of manual,
failure is so insulting and mind-blowing in conceptual and social decision-making
the end. Why did I fail this? Did I have to
fail this? Is the overall construction made
to have this failing? The humour is As with all more complex
hampered, it does not spring out of a box accomplishments in socially mitigated life,
as a surprise, not even bumpily so as with the specific combination of physical
the Jacob’s shell triangles on the other construction and draughts(wo)man labour
side of the table’s conceptual mess. Exotic essential to a free fresco painting needs
things is not sufficient as a depiction continual modification of course and mode
strategy. Exotism is a scam. The of advancing. We have to continually
humorous potential of the scene remains engage and pause, rethink and re-
frozen (is this already what could have conceptionalise to alleviate at least the
been achieved, is this really all, imaging most blatant grievances entangled by
can show?). Maybe this are the preceding doctrines we adopted for the
repercussions of the harsh discussion at sake of pragmatic advancement. It is a
the lunch table on 25th of March who more common wisdom of life experience
should be the grandma hindered to study that grievances, i.e. limitations of
Fine Arts (studying is such a trifle, the preceding working doctrines, cannot be
main interest should instead be to MAKE, alleviated on the spot where we first face
materialise such promise day in day out for its consequences but need a more radical
the other 50 years to come after the 5 work of doctrinal change and adaption
years of posing as an “Artist” and affecting the whole of the field under
socialising to celebrate the mere intention construction. Actually, no real progress
of doing so. As the perfect proletarian (and can be achieved unless we address the
distinctly macho) five star hotel cook, the whole entity under composition to be
weekend neighbour to the fresco put it on refocused. Analogously, Marx drew from
5th of May reviewing the outcome: there Hegel “Das Ganze ist das Wahre”. In the
are artists, but we are workers. If I am not practical logistic strain of co-ordinating
completely mistaken, he included us, the tasks for fresco production, we have a
fresco collective in his epigram, which whole range of components for the whole,
would be a satisfactory final statement for whose making have been set forth in the
our tentative agency in Portugal past and are rather difficult to be changed.
2012/2013. We have reached our aim. We The two lines of consistency: manual
have experienced our limits and got a process and its doctrine artisanal
sense of how to surmount them in future excellence in crafts(wo)manship can
run-ups: we are working people. We try we maybe never be really reconciled or even
ultimately fail. The labour relation is set brought to a stable equilibrium with the

32
necessities of a more conceptional painting whitens continually over the
evolvement based on a radicality of following half year. Every change of
innovation akin to Walter Sickert’s moisture is enhancing a more light
refutation of all manners, his constant underpinning to the colours. This
drive to see everything afresh and capture emboldens after some trial observations to
it anew. Sickert himself, though go for extreme hues, especially using
comfortably posing as a suitor (he was freely applied hydrated lime itself in the
perhaps more professionally a suitor than second part of realisation at Correias from
ever a painter, owing much of his fame day shift 4 to 6.
and income to his much elder wife and
intimate acquaintances alongside) of This richness of expressive means can to
Degas in a bourgeois isolation under the a certain degree be channelled into a relay
postulate of art-pour-art, could in fact race planning process from day shift to
never even proceed to finish more than day shift. Basic parameters can thus be
tentative sketches for even a mere passed on while being taken up always on
tempera decoration to a single dining room a more enhanced level by a following day
and thus prominently failed a major private shift. Only if planning was not able to
order. His manual doctrine to work enhance suitable pre-figuration in
everything anew clang to the instruction to imaginative processes accompanying the
let every layer get “bone dry”, which was painting, they fail to become evocative for
formulated in such a close-to-military a reader of figures done over different day-
rigour a vivid reflection of the cruelty of shifts assembling their components in an
British colonial operations of his instant, in a swift movement of her or his
surroundings financing his work. eyes. I assume it is for the time being
Transparent hues akin to fresco layering better to make such artisanal
are by far more operational and inconsistencies to conceptional overreach
stretchable in their possibilities than in transparent, than to try to hide them. The
aquarelle or oil/tempera painting ever can cart wheel between day shift 3 and 5
achieve due to material processes thus assembled around the head of figure 35
activated. Hues are applied practically (documented in its upper part of day shift 3
without any glue added. Transparent lime as no. 32. I), h) and j)) is such an example.
water moves so very similar to pure water In Romania at intervention no. 70 of
on the painting surface that there is, lighter September 2002, we first experimented
even than in aquarelle glue painting, no with a simulated day shift break within one
impediment to the free allocation of day’s labour. The results were
pigments on the painting ground. Their encouraging. An experience of making
liaisons rely on the carbonizing of top contradictions at least retraceable to keep
layers to any hue by merging physically them open for future discussion and
and chemically with as much as over the measurement by critical eyes became a
top of the painting ground. This process is means of streaming contradictions and
far ripened already within about 600 evolving them to arbitrary focal lines
seconds allowing to re-pass any hue with supportive of arguments to the overall
another, e.g. contrary perception without composition. From day shift 3 at no. 132
destroying the previous traces of uniquely onwards, first the inner (radius 1/3 of total
characteristic manual touch because wall height), then in shift 4-6 also the outer
carbonisation preserves the immediacy circle (radius ½) were subject to such
and artisanal patina as a crystallising painting breaks in simulation, entangling
under-paint. Furthermore, the basis of the conscious breaks of colour association a
certain simulated degree of awkwardness
33
in relay race parameter transmission and creation of visual landscapes in depth of
refusal to continue trifle caprices which imaginative space (and time). Always
were in a process of more critical reflection preoccupied from Masha’s comment
identified as not really carrying the overall onwards to fore-mostly create depth and
argument. free space for free individuals to lavish in, I
took to levelling large parts into the
The main preoccupations during the landscape model we saw around us under
painting process were curiously enough of the vivid horizon line: verticality levelled
a distinct making by social interaction and into arable plots, overgrown by grand
controversial reasoning. Though being one arrogance of agro-industrial massive
at the brushes, discussion and the eyes of exploitation in a set of pine trees thrown
others were the most important means of over the exposed relief caprices of vertical
visual production. I was, so I thought, local geology with the pretention of a
alone at the brushes actually against my rational grid guiding operations. Is this the
intention. That lasted until Oktobrinka took promising merger of agriculture and
to hooliganising on her own account. First industry hailed by Marx (“Capital” on
she attacked the under-plastering, then Agricultural industry and progress
with the same spontaneous surety on the (footnote no. 4 on grand machinery)_) and
very top with a technically suitable (and just temporarily distorted to our eyes by
un-washable, I tried it) warm cover to an private profit priorities and – comically
environment (left arm of figure 45) I had enough - the factual absence of conditions
previously repeatedly noted as actually for its realisation in most instances of our
terribly cold and aloof, though presumably terribly short life? Hardly so.
populated by a bunch of lively kids, but
rather unchangeable due to newly adopted
doctrines of colour reduction to underpin
simulated shift breaks along the two circle finished writing at Correias, 7th may 2013
lines.

Following Masha’s reflection on populating

and over-crowding space after day shift
one, I kept on being primordially pre-
occupied by questions how to populate
with figures which were more than just a
crowd, just popular mass but real agents
of their place in the overall tissue. I wanted
only such strong characters who were able
to break that tissue’s forced consistency if
need be. Hopefully that succeeded up to
the labour gang pulling up the second
barrel, fig. 29 down to fig. 20 (which itself
is the only questionable figure. I
discovered it as astronomers discovered
planet Pluto in the 1920s which is by far
not the last and not even the biggest of a
whole cloud of outer planets at the lower
fringe of planet size by today’s
knowledge). I wanted to have figures only
supporting, never counter-acting the
34