tg STAN presents excerpts from
Thomas Bernhard s novel ‘Oude Meesters’ .
On caricatures parents teachers art-historians
admiration burials lecture tours childhood
Schopenhauer Klimt Schiele Kokoschka Mahler
kitsch nature toilets
printers revelationists concealers of crime
Irrsigler Prater Astoria.
A confused, brutal world.
Bernhard comes up with the right words time and time again.
“Mankind would have choked to death long ago
had it suppressed all the nonsense
it had ever dreamed up.
An individual who is silent too long, chokes to death.
Mankind cannot be silent for long either, because then it chokes to death.
Even if what the individual thinks
what mankind thinks
and what the individual once thought
and what mankind once thought
is just nonsense.
One moment we are artists of speech
and another artists of silence
and we have got it down to a fine art.
Our lives are interesting precisely because
we have been able to develop our art of speech
and our art of silence.”
“In actual fact, I know not a single creative person
who can resist publishing his work for long,
who is not curious about what
the public thinks of his work.
I am always dying to know, though I
always say I am not dying to know,
that it doesnt interest me,
that I am not curious about the publics opinion,
I am always dying to know;
I lie of course when I say I am not dying to know
when really I am dying to know;
I admit, I never stop dying to know;
I want to know what people think of my work
and I always want to know what everyone thinks of it
even though the whole time I say that
it doesnt interest me what people say about it
and when I say: “I am not interested,
it leaves me cold”
I am always dying to know
and await nothing with greater suspense.
I lie when I say that public opinion
doesnt interest me, that my public doesnt interest me.
I lie when I say that I absolutely do not want to know
what people think about what I produce
that I dont read what is written about it;
then I lie, I lie in a very base manner
because I really am dying to know
what people say about my work.
I will always want to know whatever they say about my work
and I will never fail to be affected by it.
That is the truth of the matter.
excerpts from: ‘Oude Meesters’ by Thomas Bernhard
In Dutch
text ‘Alte Meister’ or Old Masters’ by Thomas Bernhard
by Jolente De Keersmaeker, Damiaan De Schrijver and Thomas Walgrave
with Damiaan De Schrijver
prompter Jolente De Keersmaeker
technique Steven Brys and Tim Wouters
coproduction tg STAN with Zomer van Antwerpen ’96, Klapstuk ’97 and Monty
in collaboration with Antwerp cultural centres
many thanks to Sint-Felixarchief en Sint-Felixpakhuis , Antwerp
premiere July 2nd 1996, Sint Felix Pakhuis, Antwerp
2012
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