Robert Walser, Gianfranco Baruchello

For two days we spoke about Robert Walser with Gino Giometti (who read without stop the clinic reports of the doctor who treated Walser in Herisau) and Lucas Marco Gisi. Gino Giometti is the translator and editor of Robert Walser in Italy; the clinical reports he read showed a Robert Walser completely uninterested in his own legacy to posterity, reading popular magazines, talking to his voices, and surveilled closely by Carl Seelig, who dubiously encouraged him constantly to write again while repeating in all newspapers that Robert Walser would never ever write again. Lucas Marco Gisi is the director of the Robert Walser Zentrum in Bern. We spoke of Robert Walser and contemporary art, Robert Walser and audiences – as a young man, he was extremely aware of the steps he had to take to have a brilliant career, and the power of the media, taking pains to appear to the media as a teenage genius. Robert Walser heard his voices for the first time when he realized that the amount of text he produced was far larger than people were ready to read. So again a mis-match of author and public.

But it was Baruchello, Gianfranco, who gave the best view on the work presented in this pavilion (el pabellón!)-

“I met Gillo Dorfles, who is a 100 years old (we actually saw him visiting the pavilion when we were talking with Massimo Torrigiani and Laura Pelaschiar, on June 4) and he told me what he appreciated the most in this pavilion was its potential to extend to infinite – its virtuality. What I think – continued Mr. Baruchello, who refers to himself as Baruchello-is that you have exhibited mainly, A WORD. There are other things here, but they are no more than the parmesan on a plate of pasta (¿qué otra metáfora podía hacer un italiano?) – and your pasta, is ONE WORD: THE INADEQUATE. You are showing this word, and you should have taken away the name Spain from the façade and write “Borges Museum”. Because what should be written in your press release is (http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html):

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”