The 8: Klaus Biesenbach

What is your line of work?

My job is to be curious and to combine curiosity with the desire to understand more about what impresses me.

If you were a work of art, which one would you choose?

If I was a work of art, I would be a piece by Stanley Brown.

What is your earliest memory of art?

My earliest memory of art is seeing Joseph Beuys on mainstream German TV being escorted by the police out of the Dusseldorf Art Academy. I have always felt that art is political, art is a movement in society, and art needs civic courage.

Which museum or foundation would you like to be locked in one night?

The Pantheon.

Francis Alys

When Faith Moves Mountains (making of), 2002

0.000 x 0.000 in (0 x 0 cm)

"In 2004, I went to Lima, Peru for the first time ever. I had asked Francis where exactly his performance had taken place. I'd organized a car and visited the sand dune (that was earlier moved for the artwork). Of course, nothing was visible, of course, no trace, but while I got out of the car, getting a bottle of Diet Coke in one of the small shops, I must have looked so both clueless and curious that a person actually walked up to me and tried, in broken English, to tell me about the fact that there had been an art movie made at the sand dune by a Belgian/Mexican team, and there were even photographs in the small store of the action taking place, so When Faith Moves Mountains truly was engraved in the local history. Both Francis Alys and Marina Abramović's work enter the realm of urban legends and modern myth by just becoming oral history, even more so than they are documented art history."