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Sunday, September 18, 2022

Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean-Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade



The Vagimule doll had a lovely time meeting for breakfast her New York gallerist Ben Tischer of Invisible Exports/New Discretions Gallery and his amazing Goddess wife Gala Verdugo at the Markt Halle on Bergmann Strasse in the Mehringdamn Kiez. It was sunny and warmish as we sat alfresco and caught up for a few hours on every little thing with joy and frivolity. The couple are in town for Art Week.

The lady Ms. D pushed herself a little too much this week in trying to be more social attending the opening at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi of the charming Ed Atkins and Steven Zultanski. The work is transporting with its CGI and foley soundscapes-very high tech and modern. I told Shari Frilot head programmer of the Sundance Film Festival´s New Frontier´s section that she had to check out the work of Ed Atkins but also that of Leila Hekmat which was being shown at Haus am Waldsee. Shari is in Europe I gather scouting for Sundance as she mentioned she was at the Berlin Biennale and was going to shuffle off to documenta as well. Seems like everyone was visiting Berlin as the weather shifted from Summer right into Winter.  I also was able to meet outside for cafe und kuchen with the very smart and darling young curator Sheldon Gooch of The Museum of Modern Art and Studio Museum of Harlem. 

Those famous scribes Hilton Als of the New Yorker Magazine and Guy Trebay of The New York Times were also in town checking out the scene. Was able to briefly attend scholar Nanna Heidenreich´s little sidewalk birthday celebration. Ms. Heidenreich is one of my favourite Berlin peeps, and looks younger each time I see her and that brilliant mind. My escort was Daniel Hendrickson, the Jewish Muzlim translator to the schtars of CHEAP Kollektiv.

Certainly what will be the most talked about exhibition of the season is Leila Hekmat`s Female Remedy on view at Haus am Waldsee in Dahlem until January 8, 2023. The manor house off the lake is converted into Hospital Hekmat a beguiling and ornately beautiful assylum of female transcendence. Accompanying the exhibition is a major Ms. Gorgeous zine catalogue and two evenings of sold out performance ritual in the form of Symptom Recital: Music for Wild Angels an original musical by the gifted Ms. Hekmat that should be conquering and refashioning Broadway. Yes Ms. Hekmat is the way, along with her collaborators the composers Roman Ole & Roman Lemberg who are the 21st centuries John Kander & Fred Ebb via Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane (Meet Me in St. Louis). Seeing the musical I felt the razzle dazzle synergies of Flora, the Red Menance, Pippin, Best Foot Forward, Sweet Charity and Elizabeth Swados Runaways. It´s a stylish hoot complete with Joan Rivers jokes in the same heightened vein as The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. Bravo Bravo Bravo to the genius cast that includes a very Glenda Jackson like and robust Roman Ole as head nurse Rene, the enchanting Clara Dessau as Nurse Rita, magnificent Magdalena Mitterhofer as Nurse Randy and the delicious Cassie Augusta Jorgensen and Shade Theret as perenial patients. Sydney Guilaroff and the Westmores of Hollywood couldn´t have done a better job with hair and makeup as Kosuke Ikeuchi & Sabina Pinsone and Ms. Hekmat´s costumes aided with the fine tailoring of Elsa Leguevaques outshines that of the great Theoni V. Aldredge.