Wie Steht Es Heute Um Die Kunst? - Ein Surrealer Dialog

The scene: a retirement home with a care centreand a ward for the mentally disturbed. Mostof them in open zones, only a few in closedzones. Some have strange tics and habits.Some are haunted by their nocturnal dreams,others, like Mr B, by the obsessive idea thatart and art history have come to an end worldwide.Only religions could save them. Mr A ismore open-minded than Mr B. But he also hashis nightmares and suffers from isolation. Both,you could say, are addicted to their daily discussions,which sometimes escalate into argumentsand then end in reconciliation.It's late summer. When the sun is shining inthe afternoon, the residents of the institution canwatch from their balconies or from the café asthe two elderly men, Mr B and Mr A, set off fortheir daily garden rounds around 3 pm, sittingon their bench for a longer time.Mr B was a heavy smoker and drinker. He isin the process of kicking all his unhealthy habits,with the help of therapists and doctors. Hardwork against his own body. In real life, he usedto be a teacher at a grammar school. His subjects:German and art.Mr A has a small moustache under his nose.He walks a little more crooked and stooped thanMr B. His life was well-behaved and bourgeois.He was a good pupil and student. After graduatingfrom high school and studying architecture,he decided to become a civil servant andapplied for a job with the city. He was hired withoutany problems and soon became head ofthe building permit office.Every day, one of the two gentlemen, usuallyMr B, brings a small piece of paper with a quotefrom an artist or philosopher to the meeting.Their conversations oscillate between seriousnessand fun, between exaggeration and irony,between play and pure entertainment, betweenPlato and Heidegger, between Karl Valentin andcurrent, meaningless politicians, between TV talkshows, adult education course topics and regulars'table gossip. We accompany the two gentlemenfor seven days, then it's over. A slice oftime. A slice of life. A slice of reality