The Illogic of Kassel

55

“There is a logic to be changed,” said Chus in her unique way of talking. “If you are feeling that you’re being pushed and have been for hours by an invisible impulse, which you consider neither normal nor Newtonian, what you have to think is that you’re in the grip of the third sense of impulse.”

And somewhat later:

“I don’t think people have any problem with art; in general they don’t have any problem with culture. It’s politics that creates the problem, it doesn’t really know what culture is. When there’s no money, people simply treat it as if it were an added extra, no? And that is the logic that needs to be changed. If artists are intellectuals, then obviously they’re not a luxury, they’re a necessity, they can change our lives. And today more than ever we need other voices, because the ones we’re hearing just tediously repeat what we’ve been hearing all our lives. What we need are new ideas, a different energy. We need to listen to those who are formulating something new and trust them and say: ‘Okay, maybe I don’t fully understand you, but I believe in what you’re proposing, at least it sounds different.’ We have to give opportunities to those who’ve been silenced and to the insane, to tell them to carry on, to not look at them with mistrust and cynicism or with an air of having seen it all before. That’s precisely what we’ve lost; we believe that it’s all been done before, refusing to see that there is still ingenious, complex, wise art that pushes our limits. We need to listen to artists. Never before has it been so necessary as in our time. Artists are the opposite of politicians. Do you remember Flaubert’s letter about going to the palace to see Prince Napoleon, but he’d gone out? I’ve heard how they talk about politics, writes Flaubert, I’ve listened to them and it’s something immense. Human stupidity is so vast and infinite!”