Publisher's Synopsis
The 'Magical Misery Tour' in Brazil is an artist's journey. Kippenberger collects material for his works and projects, and engages with the urban structures in places like Salvador de Bahia, Manaus or Recife, staging various 'Aktionen' in the public space. It's Böckler's job to document all this. The over 150 images taken capture her personal observation as well as Kippenberger's visions, ideas and performative interventions. He poses in front of modernist sculptures and buildings; tapes himself to a huge promotional beer bottle; knees down by a small palm tree on the beach of Maceió and re-enacts the oak-planter of the German 50-Pfennig coin. The journey also includes the legendary 'Aktion' of the purchase of the gas station 'Martin Bormann'. "We stop at a beach-front gas station, which Martin wants to buy on the spot and rename the Tankstelle Martin Bormann. He tells me that Martin Bormann was a high-ranking Nazi who slipped away to South America and now operates a gas station somewhere in Brazil. Some of the works Kippenberger created from the trip's material later became the core of his first monographic museum exhibition Miete Strom Gas at the Landesmuseum in Darmstadt.
