GUESTS OF DAY 06 - April 22nd


Today I had 4 guests scheduled but unfortunately two of them couldn't come. Fortunately Sara Iselin jumped in. She is currently working for the photographer Deniz Saylan and she decided to visit spontaneously when I was down at Deniz' studio to have my portrait taken.

Sara is half amerikan/half german and guessed that her mother (her amrican side) might want to come and see the project. Now that would be interesting. Sara also told me that she was once quite active in terms of religious services when she was younger but that she isn't anymore.

Sara's favourite Jesus was the one pictured in the newspaper "Bild Zeitung". This particular volume was published on October 7th, 2003 and contains a full page Jesus painted by "the famous artist Prof. Ernst Fuchs". She kind of wavered for a second because she thought that her choice might be too easy and not really appropriate, a wavering that only lead to an even firmer decision. In the picture you can see her with the "Bild Jesus" in her hands.

The other two guests were Magdalena Pramendorfer (middle, front), a colleague from work and her friend Kai Blisch (behind Magdalena). Again I found it interesting that they were asking each other how to answer certain questions from the questionnaire regarding partners. "What did you put at martial status?" Well, I kind of expected them to be in the clear about that ... which they were in the end. Both of them "dropped out" of church just recently, for rather worldly reasons: "If you are a student, it's a lot cheaper not to have a confession."

Magdalenas favourite Jesus was a small picture in a black frame (you can see it on the far wall, bottom right). She picked it because it is the Jesus that appears most often in the exhibition, not only the pose but the actual print. It must have been given out by the church and it must be a copy of a rather famous motive (link will follow as soon as it is online). In fact, it is a motive very similar to and probably based on the painting "Ecce Homo" (1639-42) by the well known painter Guido Reni. I just googled that and found out that I have another copy of one of his works in the collection ... interesting.

Kai`s favourite Jesus is on the right hand wall, top row, second from the left. It is sort of a goth-like motive with a very dark Jesus glancing down on you from above. "Glancing" is not the right wird because his eyes are either closed or open, depending on how the light falls on it and depending on the angle from where you look at it.

That makes it 11 guests and 10 different favourite Jesus. And none has been picked twice. How does that work? Well, Deniz hasn't decided on his favourite Jesus yet.

Overall, today's visit was kind of short and I (in white shirt, little hair) have to admit that I felt a bit worn out today. In fact, I still do ...