Martin Kippenberger’s “Magical Misery Tour” is almost legendary. From December 1985 through March 1986 he toured Brazil to collect material for his project Tankstelle Martin Bormann (Gas Station Martin Bormann). As the story goes according to Kippenberger, there was supposedly a gas station somewhere in the country that had belonged to Bormann—a private secretary to Adolf Hitler. The artist resolved to realize the myth by buying a filling station and naming it after Bormann. Photographic documentation of this expedition was undertaken by Ursula Böckler, his assistant at the time. Staged thirty years after the trip, Böckler’s new exhibition shows quite a number of prints from it, displayed in meticulously ordered rows that reach to the ceiling.
One sees Kippenberger, often in staged poses, in front of harsh or unusual architecture, various public sculptures, or tropical backdrops. For the series “Documentation of ‘Gas Station Bormann,’” 1986—hung separately here—–Böckler shot him as he sketched conversion plans for the location in chalk on the ground or scratched the logo “TMB” on one of the gas station’s walls. It becomes clear that some of Böckler’s works on view were created according to Kippenberger’s instructions, and thus they present less her own individual experience than the reproduction of his view of what was happening. The trip itself conjures up a complex host of issues, which, given the relationships between them, are only made visible via fragments. The excerpts here examine not only Kippenberger’s conceptually elaborate schemes but also moments of shared intimacy, aided by his aptitude for a good pose.
Translated from German by Diana Reese.
