43 PORTRAITS IN 43 DAYS

Berlin photo artist Kiki Kausch in search of lost time.

But as soon as a sound that has already been heard, a fragrance that has already been inhaled, is perceived anew as something that is simultaneously present and past, a reality that nevertheless does not belong to the moment, an ideal that nevertheless does not remain abstract, the constantly present but usually hidden essence of all things is immediately released, and our true self, which sometimes seemed to have been dead for a long time but was nevertheless not completely so, awakens (...). ) A minute lifted out of the order of time has recreated in us, that he may experience it, the man who has become free from the order of time. (...) What could he, removed from time, fear for the future?

Marcel Proust – In Search of Lost Time

March 2020: Germany has shut down and the first lockdown has begun. There are no planes in the sky. No people on the streets. Just pure… silence. The feeling of melancholy, loneliness and fear is slowly spreading, whilst in parallel poetry, responsibility and creativity are blossoming in order to overcome this new way of life.

It is precisely this feeling that has inspired "43 Days". In 43 Days Kiki Kausch visits 43 Berliners at their "places of isolation", their homes. Photographic home-stories for which everyone has time now, their calendars are unmarked. The who’s who all at the ready.

An intimate insight is created: thoughtful, humorous, optimistic and cheeky ...

F.A.Z. Magazine cover story from June 13, 2020 "Timeout" 

"Kiki Kausch has made the most of the weeks of enforced isolation in Berlin, unlike anyone else. With her Leica and ladder, she visited creatives who usually keep life buzzing in the capital and photographed them at a distance in their home ambience, vulgo: home office."

Excerpts:

Nico Hofmann - CEO of UFA. He  had to stop almost all the productions. Was the lockdown right or wrong? He doesn't know. He looks the way he feels, between his singing bowls, at Wannsee. Heinrich Heine says: “Every time is a sphinx that plunges into the abyss as soon as you have solved its riddle.”

Andrea Sawatzki - She would have travelled to Ireland for a film where she had never been and where she might have met Matt Damon. Only gin and tonic can help. In the garden jungle at home in the south of Berlin.  

Christian Berkel - sticks to rum. The original barrel from "Inglorious Bastards" has found its place in the home cinema he designed himself. Still watching DVDs. Albert Einstein says: “Time is what you read off the clock.”

Marco Müller - had just received his third Michelin star - as the first chef in Berlin - then the Rutz had to close. But: stars oblige. The entrecôte on the BBQ is made from locally sourced beef and costs 280 euros a kilo. 

Chaim Machlev - the Israeli is one of the hottest tattoo artists in the world. Customers have to wait three years for an appointment with him. Now he has to wait. But Da Vinci says: “Time lingers long enough for those who want to make use of it.”

Marvin Dogue - 24 years old, world athletics champion and student at the University of Potsdam. He can no longer achieve his big goal for this year, even though he already had the ticket in his pocket. It is still written in his calendar for August.  

Alina - although she is called 'The German Adele' and sings so powerfully, she is Alina and lives in a small flat-share in Friedrichshain. One of the books on the windowsill is called 'Courageous'. And so she got into the water for this photo wearing a negligee and tiger sandals.  Madonna says: “It's a waste of time to do something mediocre.”

Jonathan Meese - never actually flies. But lost his bearings a bit in the lockdown. And thus painted new pictures. His greatest concern is his 90-year-old mother, who lives with him. Max Frisch says: “Time does not transform us, it only unfolds us.”

Katja Riemann - in resistance to loss of style. Annoyed by self-appointed Corona controllers and denunciation. Coco Chanel says: “There is a time for work. And there is a time for love. That's all the time you have.”

Makatsch - in the middle of life, in the middle of Berlin, right in the middle. Hang on instead of hangover. 

Michael Douglas says: "Life artists live from the time that others don't have”.

Alice Dwyer - wicked and smoky in silk. One could now read Seneca: "On Leisure". Or prepaint her Kreuzberg flat.