A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall (27 page)

When he was still an athlete, he had lacked all trace of competition,
agon
or
zelos
. He was never a competitor in the sense of being against anyone. To the extent that he cared about the relative performance of each individual adversary, Owen was one of the few who wanted his opponent at his absolute best. Not so he could defeat a more worthy rival—that would have amounted to vanity. His view was religious. Rather than being ruled by Eris, the daughter of Night, Owen was driven by
arete
, the mandate to always be his best. When he dove into a pool, he dove into an
aristeia
. He was too empty while performing to worry about competition. He extended the same courtesy to his opponents that he extended to everyone else in his life: the need to see potential realized.

Since Owen's injury in the game against Cal, he had become a competitor, fighting against the world rather than surrendering to it. Too conscious, Owen now rode through a colorless world, free of conviction. In this pale godless world anything could happen.

With nothing but competition driving Owen to Basel, he arrived in agony.

S
mooth and ink-trailing as the sweep of a broad-nib pen, the Rhine cuts Basel in two. The northeastern half of the city had been transformed to fairground, people walking the riverbank who spend most of their lives being driven. Owen wandered into the southwestern half of the city: gated châteaus interspersed with block housing.

After learning from three hotels that the last room in the city had been booked a month prior, Owen wandered to the university and managed to secure a futon in an apartment of computer programmers for eighty Swiss francs a night.

In the big multinational bookstore, Owen sifted through the magazines and newspapers, looking for the pictures. In big block letters on the cover of
Vice
magazine,
KURT WAGENER
. Kurt wore a tank commander's helmet, visor up, and a camouflage flak vest with iron-on patches of Disney characters. He was pointing at the sky, calling his shot.

Owen brought the magazine to the Zum Schmale Wurf near the Rhine quayside and read the interview over a lager.

           
Kurt Wagener has defined what it means to be a twenty-first-century artist. Exploding onto the scene in January of 2001 with his show 1.1.1.1 and bringing with him the now-legendary group of artists at the Todd Zeale Gallery, Wagener has pushed art further in the past four years than anyone could have foreseen. Critics have been racing to catch up with him, refining the new critical lexicon of post-op modernism. He is quite simply the most exciting young artist in the world today.

           
VICE: Can you begin, Kurt, by telling us what post-op modernism means to you?

           
Kurt Wagener:
Sure. I came up with the term when this
New York Times
writer was interviewing me for my first solo show in Chelsea. This was before the assault, you know, but I was already thinking of the artist as a surgeon. It was all about the role of the transformed body—either as a picture that you fuck with or as a tattoo or something. And about, like, getting beyond the signifier and signified operation. The pieces are post-operation.

           
VICE: I saw someone yesterday with a T-shirt that read Poop Mod . . .

           
KW
: No. Just no. Next question.

           
VICE: Can you describe to our readers the assault you alluded to?

           
KW
: So yeah. We were partying at this fashion thing, and I kind of go outside with this girl and then get separated from everybody. These three guys come around the side of the car and say something about her. I couldn't let that happen. I knock out the first guy, but the other two get me down on the ground and stomp on my neck.

           
VICE: The assailants were Arab, correct?

           
KW
: Yeah. Maybe Turkish.

           
VICE: How do you feel about the wave of anti-immigrant attacks that followed?

           
KW
: I was surprised. It was a few months after Bush invaded Iraq, but I was surprised about how big the response was. Because, I mean, I'm famous in the art world, or whatever, but that's like being the king of Liechtenstein. In the larger world, you know, you need to be a movie star or Michael Jordan or something to make an impact. I get one week a year of being really famous: Art Basel.

           
VICE: You're being modest.

           
KW
: Can I get that in print? No, seriously. I had a solo show, not a group show, at Red Rhombus in London and then couldn't get into Kate Moss's party across the road. Basel is the only place where people ask me to pose with them for pictures—I never do, but at least they ask.

           
VICE: Do you think honesty is important to your work?

           
KW
: Absolutely. I would say it's the only aspect of my work. Kurt Cobain was huge for me. He shot himself when I was fourteen and going through a bunch of shit. I read his suicide note over and over again. I memorized it for theater class. Flunked. But Kurt was really the greatest genius of his generation. That letter is probably the most significant literary work of the twentieth century. His message was simple. I mean, read the fucking letter. You'll never read anything more honest. He said, Look, sometimes I mail it in. And I feel awful about it. I'd rather put a shotgun in my mouth than sell you something fake. That's the sort of honesty I'm after in my work. There are fucking strikethroughs, and it's messy. Everything that we used to call craft, artists are now realizing is dishonesty. Sure there are better painters out there, but if I ever feel like there's a more honest artist, then I'm going to suck the fucking slug from a Glock like it was an oyster.

           
VICE: What about violence?

           
KW
: Violence can never be a metaphor. Neither can sex. Which is why my work is concerned chiefly with sex and violence. Sexual violence. As far as it being my message, just walk around any art fair and count how many people are ripping me off. And it's like whatever. On the one hand, the more bad work that's out there, the more valuable the great work is. On the other hand, don't plagiarize, fuckers!

           
VICE: Your work has been up at Art Basel before, but this year you're actually attending?

           
KW
: I'm with a new dealer. Part of the reason I went with Pfaff Galleries was their booth space. Floor one. And with enough square footage for all three of the large-scale installations I'm planning.

           
VICE: Can you describe them? Would that be okay with the mysterious Myron Pfaff?

           
KW
: The greatest thing about my life is that I can do whatever the fuck I want. Right when you walk in, there's an installation on your left and an installation on your right. On the left is a giant terrarium with a glass front. It's going to be big, like five meters high, ten meters long, and two meters deep. Inside, a dozen models naked except for high heels. I decided to outfit each of the girls with a Polaroid 340 camera and an endless supply of flashbulbs and film. My idea is that the models will take photos of whoever watches them. Those flashbulbs are fucking crazy. I did some preliminary testing and these magnesium bulbs are fucking crazy bright and they sound like a gun when they go off. [Makes an explosion sound: “Boom Boom Crack.”] To get the bulbs to explode, you have to put your fingerprints on them. And that's the artist's touch. They've got to have some kind of oil on the surface and be touched to explode. It's pretty sexual. Those bulbs are my favorite part of the show. I've told Myron to line up buyers for any of the bulbs that make it through the week. I can't think of a more pure artistic work.

           
VICE: So your idea is to have a bunch of naked fashion models, whose legs alone are probably insured for a million euros, parading around in a tank with hot glass shards flying everywhere?

           
KW
: Well, we aren't going to be getting top-tier models! They're not really that much fun anyway. These girls are happy to do it and should be making some serious cash from the Polaroids. The money from those sales is all theirs. Once the photo develops, the girls will hang it from the front of the tank so that visitors will only see the black film-back. I think a lot of people will pay just to make sure no one else sees their leering. The entire front of the tank should be tiled with these little Polaroid pictures by Saturday morning. It will be a peep show in reverse. But the focus will be on their feet, eventually. And here there's some real tension because as the thousands of flashbulbs explode, there's gonna be a lot of fucking glass on that floor. Every step is going to be an event.

           
VICE: What's this work called?

           
KW
:
Exposure
.

           
VICE: What was the vision behind the other two installations?

           
KW
: Vision? That's a very romantic view of art. In practice, art is more like a threesome, beautiful only in the abstract. In reality, it's a little awkward. Drug fueled. Somebody inevitably gets a little bored. If my work has a goal, it's to defy boredom. As far as the pieces here at Basel, one is an exact reconstruction of the bar room of the
Wasserturm
, my place in Berlin. It's going to serve as a fully stocked open bar for the course of Art Basel. Free drinks. No tricks. The other work is an installation of four photographs. The source images are the photos released in late April from Abu Ghraib. I recreated each image, added a few touches, but the big thing was how I inverted the subject. Rather than a poor Iraqi cabdriver, I captured Captain America himself.

           
VICE: What do you mean, you captured Captain America? [Mr. Wagener's legal counsel clarified that Halfred Baumberger “captured” images with a medium-format camera.]

The story contained three full-page pictures: one of Owen hooded and standing on a wooden spool with electrodes coiling from under his hands to a car battery; one of Kurt's refabricated dining room from the
Wasserturm
with the table full of liquor and disposable cups, cups as ashtrays, everything that wasn't at the tower yesterday.

Hives broke out under Owen's collar, turtlenecking up to his jaw. He turned to a full-page picture of Kurt in profile, interviewed by a young woman, presumably the author. A lanyard on the table reflected bright light. Beside it, 2004's neon-green Art Basel catalogue. He tore the picture from the magazine. Comparing all the city guides, he gathered that the only game in town was the Hotel Trois Rois.

He imagined Kurt on a balcony overlooking the Rhine, pinching the filter of his Marlboro Red and smoking each drag as if he were being photographed in black and white, summoning the ennui of French New Wave, but really contemplating the limitations of his newest cell phone. Owen imagined him chucking it in the river and then rolling back inside.

Owen, now with a map of Russia rashed around his throat, walked the carpeted stairs and was stopped short of the revolving door.

—Are you staying with us, sir?

The doorman's tone made it clear this was a rhetorical question.

—I'm meeting a friend at the bar.

—I'm afraid the bar is closed for a private event.

—Then I guess I'll just meet him in the lobby.

This was about as long as a conversation with a doorman can last before someone touches an arm or makes a threat. Owen walked by. The doorman gave a tight smile.

Owen paced the lobby, looking for the patinated wall in the photo. Instead, he found nothing but ecru and dim lighting. He asked a bellhop if the room in the photo was in this hotel. The bellhop shook his head just before the manager approached.

—May I help you, sir?

—Just on my way out. I had the wrong hotel.

Owen walked into every hotel in the
Wallpaper* City Guide
to Basel and had much the same experience. After striking out at the last of their recommended hotels, he realized he was at a dead end. Which in the adult world, as he was learning, typically meant a trip to the bar. He found a spot on the promenade north of the Rhine.

—Bourbon and a beer, please.

—Any preference?

—Whatever's cheapest.

The bartender joined him for the whisky. She raised her glass and met his eye.

—Are you in town for the show?

Owen could see this conversation replayed to a ring of cops.

—I'm here for a few days and then I'm off to Thailand.

She raised her eyebrows to say okay, then continued reading her book.

Owen unfolded the photo of Kurt in the hotel lobby and smoothed it on the bar. He read the last page of the interview:

           
KW
: This American Olympian comes up to me at a neighborhood bar and goes on and on about how much my work means to him and how he would love to collaborate on something. This kind of thing happens all the time, but usually the guy is a loser and looking to get a boost in his career. And why would I do that? But this guy looked the part. He was really fucking tall and had an eye patch. The day before, that picture from Abu Ghraib of the dude standing on the box hit the media and my first question at that point was, “Why isn't this art?” So I pitched the idea of re-creating it, but with the American as the model, and he thought it was brilliant, so he said yes.