Page 8 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 11

Christian Psychology

About the Art Works

by Thomas Pfeufer

(Germany) and Since then, of course, I continue to sit on chairs,

Werner May (Germany) usually without thinking or as something self-
evident. They seldom rise to the level of cultural
symbols.
Life from a chair!
There it was, in the middle of the olive trees, in In the chair objects by Thomas Pfeufer, the chair
Italy’s famous Tuscany: my seminar chair. was chosen as a platform for life, where human
More than ten years ago, I was in charge of a destinies “take place”. All his chairs illustra-
creativity unit at a summer academy. I had sent te being locked in, the chair as a prison which
the participants off with their chairs for each to nevertheless elevates. The perception which is
use according to his/her creative language – as shared by cultural anthropologists, “the chair
a painting, photo, dance etc. Accordingly, I too forces man to become sedentary,” causes dete-
set off, to let my chair “speak” in a poem. rioration, leads to “back pain”. The expressive
power of these objects impresses me with new
Perhaps it was precisely because I found it dif- freshness every time and motivates me, like the
ficult “to hear the chair” because there was so chair in Tuscany, to go on an investigative jour-
much beauty around me – the Tuscan hills, oli- ney in poetry.
ve groves, vineyards, and the specific light of the
place – that I found that all of that, all this na-
ture, spoke to me, only the chair said nothing.
It became clear to me how much I had attached
myself to earth, wind and water, and this “back
to nature” was for me an expression of “getting
away from culture”, getting away from the man-
made. So in this moment the chair became for
me a representative of culture. Simultaneous-
ly, my “back to nature” revealed itself to me as
projection of rejection I had experienced per-
sonally from others, of my own inferiority. And
of fear of being limited, of being tied down: the
chair fixes me to one point in endless space. My
longing for unlimited freedom, a utopia!

And, as is the case in such existential situations,
I knew that my task was to decide in favour of
the chair in order to be really human. In fact
nature, as I knew it, also showed traces of man:
the idea of “nature alone” was a fiction. And
freedom takes place amidst limitation and tying
down which one has accepted. The one who
wishes to do what he must do is free, not the
one who does not have to do anything. Then the
poem “Becoming human under an olive tree”
took shape.

7