Norbert Brunner - Pardon

NORBERT BRUNNER
Micro II, 2017
C-print, acrylic glass, adhesive dots, LEDs, frame

Coffee is a chemical marker of the transition between adolescence and adulthood. At a certain point — usually during graduation exams [Matura] —parents just give up and let their teenager have a cup of Java before heading for school or hitting-the-books. Some parents keep peddling chicory — remember chicory (?) — and denying supply… only to realize that the teenager is already guzzling Nescafé over homework at their best friend or study-buddy's house down-the-road.

Mark-making is equally symbolical and transitional; bound to the formation of adolescent identity on its journey towards adulthood. Oftentimes it starts out with a signature [Unterschrift]: practiced and stylized over-and-over in schoolbooks, notebooks, and scraps of paper until the teenager thinks their scrawl is just right and "represents". That mark-making, especially in summertime — with a subaltern ski season equivalent (at least for boys, that is) — can be carried over to a sort of territorial or romantic scoring: in tree bark — with a knife; on beach sand — with driftwood or a stick; on a concrete wall — with spray paint; and as aforementioned in the snow — with "yellow ink!". These marks are never a 'signature' per se; they’re pictograms, hieroglyphs, handles, and 'love marks'.

And so, Norbert Brunner has produced Pardon (2024), which somehow combines the nascent trajectory of coffee, of signatures, and of mark-making. Just look at it and you can intuit its meanings and understand its intent. It's a lovey-dovey Jolly Roger, a romantic Skull-and-Crossbones, and a logo-suite that pulls at the history of coffee as coming from parts of the world embedded in piracy, profiteering, and [sadly] slavery. Pardon is a love-mark that would look as good carved into a tree-trunk with a Swiss Army Knife than emblazoned on a mirror. You get the gist.

Maybe the title "pardon" is the artist asking the world forgiveness for having never grown up? An acknowledgement that he remains, late-in-life, one of Peter Pan's "Lost Boys" and fighting-the-good-fight against the dastardly forces of Captain Hook, Mr. Smee, and their pirates — forever fueled by coffee and able to fly. Let’s hope so. Coz it’s powerful stuff and can give you wings ;-)

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