Ernst Pinossi Picture show

«It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.»

A Dialogue Between Ernst Pinossi, Bachelard, Helen and You.

Ernst rolls out of the fireplace. His legs are covered in soot and his shirt remains crumpled and untucked. He tumbles over and onto the carpet, his legs flailing over his head. Everything here is white and lilac and silver and orange. Colours for playing and for writing on top of; a palimpsestic room where each piece of furniture breathes. You are invited to draw on the walls and to stitch soft thread into the wallpaper. Ernst himself is not sure how he got here. His eyes are glazed over, wondering erratically from side to side. His matted beard has wrapped around the ornate bannister, awkwardly. He stops and turns half way, hesitantly. TAP TAP KNOCK. Ernst hears sounds, a sort of cacophony, and is unsure whether he is producing them himself, or whether they come from that wooden container in the middle of the room. They are not human noises, but neither are they robotic or artificial. They emerge from the in- between. Ernst looks down the corridor, as it opens up to him. The floor is widening out and spiralling into the staircase. For a moment, everything is still, and the interiors wait in suspense.

In this male, yet feminine space, do not forget Helen: ‘who will forget the veil / caught on a fallen pilaster / the shout, then breathless silence’.

The veil is gone and something else speaks now:

I emerged from the fireplace, as unravelling a string –
now you’re here, in my house, in the warmth, the rubble, the noise and I hope it will give you some questions.

I am Ernst Pinossi. I am a heteroglossic compound, born from collaboration, loss, the hush, the instinct of a brush. I come out of a dirty sock, a smelly fridge, or a rushed email.

Hear my echo, in your head, in your head-phone, in your home.

You can knock on my door, touch the interiors with your hand and approach my performance as you would an open clearing or an empty car park.

I bring you a picture show, to add to your own interior space. Glimpses of fragments that emerge from non-moments. Moments that are not centred, or balanced or for the neatly structured curation of a family album by your grandma.

Fit me into the skirting boards, in the window, in the lampshade and on the ceiling. Each of these interior corners is endowed with memory; archives of when you sat on that green chair to cry or lay on the cushioned sofa, relaxing with a lover while its upholstered edges frayed. Remember how that piece of furniture has its own psychology, its own series of consequential and banal experiences. The kitchen sink – with its yellowing enamel, its rusted centre – it remembers how it first flung out of the plastic packaging, and came into being. The rug on the floor that was once gnawed by a dog feels tired, yet it is connected to each foot that has walked upon it.

Welcome to my Poetics of Space. It is not mine anymore. I lost the rights to the lease, to GB and GD, RB and the end of his author. The paper floats here now, waiting to be signed and impossible to possess.

Ruby Reding

With the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, COCOF, Ville de Bruxelles

Listen Ernst Pinossi on soundcloud