Kathrin Böhm: Art on the Scale of Life continues to resonate – and not only for Kathrin and those involved in her myriad activities with others. The latest issue of Dutch art magazine Metropolis M comprises an in-depth reflection by Gerardo Gomez Tonda, an artist himself. At first glance I though he had conducted an interview with Kathrin, but the article is something else altogether: the author uses the book as a lever to explore how art can be positioned differently, something he has tried to do in his own practice. Gomez Tonda references other artists and projects too, but keeps returning to quotes and notions outlined in Art on the Scale of Life. Which neatly demonstrates what the book intended to do in the first place: consider the relevance and potential of practices like Kathrin’s, which don’t operate within the regular frameworks of the art world, but by and large happen to exist elsewhere, in or as real life.
For now the article is only available in Dutch in the print version of Metropolis M, but hopefully they will in publish the original English text online due course. One minor gripe: while other books mentioned are properly referenced, it would have been useful to offer that for the book that is the essay’s focus too, not least because it was such an intensely collaborative project…
Gerrie van Noord 