Wie steht es heute um die Kunst? - Ein surrealer Dialog

The scene: a retirement home with a care centre and a ward for the mentally disturbed. Most of them in open zones, only a few in closed zones. Some have strange tics and habits. Some are haunted by their nocturnal dreams, others, like Mr B, by the obsessive idea that art and art history have come to an end worldwide. Only religions could save them. Mr A is more open-minded than Mr B. But he also has his nightmares and suffers from isolation. Both, you could say, are addicted to their daily discussions, which sometimes escalate into arguments and then end in reconciliation. It's late summer. When the sun is shining in the afternoon, the residents of the institution can watch from their balconies or from the café as the two elderly men, Mr B and Mr A, set off for their daily garden rounds around 3 pm, sitting on their bench for a longer time. Mr B was a heavy smoker and drinker. He is in the process of kicking all his unhealthy habits, with the help of therapists and doctors. Hard work against his own body. In real life, he used to be a teacher at a grammar school. His subjects: German and art. Mr A has a small moustache under his nose. He walks a little more crooked and stooped than Mr B. His life was well-behaved and bourgeois. He was a good pupil and student. After graduating from high school and studying architecture, he decided to become a civil servant and applied for a job with the city. He was hired without any problems and soon became head of the building permit office. Every day, one of the two gentlemen, usually Mr B, brings a small piece of paper with a quote from an artist or philosopher to the meeting. Their conversations oscillate between seriousness and fun, between exaggeration and irony, between play and pure entertainment, between Plato and Heidegger, between Karl Valentin and current, meaningless politicians, between TV talk shows, adult education course topics and regulars' table gossip. We accompany the two gentlemen for seven days, then it's over. A slice of time. A slice of life. A slice of reality