Kippenberger by Searls Damion Kippenberger Susanne

Author:Searls, Damion, Kippenberger, Susanne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.

Martin and Albert Oehlen at the “Officer’s Casino” artist’s vodka-drinking contest, Vienna

© Dietrich Sattmann

“Martin was unbelievably enthusiastic and meticulous and worked incredibly hard organizing it, with posters and flyers,” Corbaci later said. “He even hired a paramedic and we set up a hospital bed in the next room—there were one or two people who needed it.” Anyone who wanted to watch had to pay an entrance fee. The artists stood in line, and whoever’s turn it was stepped up to the table, drank, handed the bottle back, crawled under the table to the other side, and then went around to the back of the line. The Austrian team was the first to empty their ten bottles.

The pace of these actions and events was relentless. One Friday at noon there was a carriage race, followed at 7 p.m. by the “Address to the Brainless” that Peter Weibel (a vodka-drinking-contest participant) had invited them to give, then at midnight the Peter Altenberg Cup was handed out to the winner of the carriage race in Café Alt Wien, then the next day at 6 p.m. came the closing of Martin’s Shock Out Is the Name of the Game show at Pakesch, then on Sunday morning Albert and Martin appeared onstage at the Museum of the Twentieth Century as the Alma Band with Martin as the singer (singing “freestyle,” in the artist Hans Wiegand’s description, “panting across the stage with the microphone in his hand”).

Every event with its own poster, of course. Despite the announcement, though, the First Vienna Carriage Race took place in a deserted Prater Park—no one showed up on that cold December day, unless you count Attersee, the artist, and Didi Sattmann, the photographer whom Martin had asked to document the event. Photographs and stories and the presentation of the winner’s cup were enough to create the legend. They had met up at the Old Vienna Café, gone to Stephansplatz, the cathedral square, and hired two tourist fiacres for a price everyone was happy with. Then came the race, not particularly fast—Sattmann guessed that the winner had already been decided in advance. Martin’s later announcement ran as follows: “1st Place: Martin Kippenberger. 2nd Place: Albert Oehlen. 3rd Place: Not awarded due to shortage of serious participants.”

“I thought it was just magnificent,” Didi Sattmann says. “I had never seen anyone like that. It fascinated me that an artist could follow his path like that—so creative, so direct, so unconventional.” Sattmann and his camera often accompanied Martin, who wanted to be documented as a living work of art. Sattmann photographed the drinking contest, the “Address to the Brainless,” and whatever else took place, or even things that never took place, for instance Albert and Martin lying passed out from alcohol on the floor (they were actually completely sober). He did so both on his own initiative and under pressure from Martin: “You have to!” Martin had said. He liked Sattmann’s pictures, “and he knew that I’d be there.” He was there even when

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