Carsten Höller

"Chew The Fat" (Informal) - To have a long friendly conversation with someone. In the film project 'Chew The Fat', the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, living in New York portraits a group of 12 artists (Douglas Gordon, Angela Bulloch, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, Dominique Gonzalez - Foerster, Elizabeth Peyton, Tobias Rehberger, Carsten Hoeller, Liam Gillick, Jorge Pardo, Andrea Zittel, Maurizio Cattelan). The artists, all chosen by Tiravanija, belong to the same generation as himself and, like him, have advanced during the nineties to achieve international success. Most importantly, all are good friends of Tiravanija. This creates a particularly relaxed situation in which conversation can flow naturally between the two with personal issues coming up as easily and often as those to do with work or career.

The subject of his own experiment, Höller consumes fly agaric mushrooms and is ostensibly affected. He describes his experience before he starts to sing a German Christmas carol for children, “Ihr Kinderlein Kommet” (O, Come, Little Children) more or less comprehensibly in overtones.

The film follows the performative duel, or fara fara (meaning face-to-face in Lingala) between two of the DRC’s biggest stars, Koffi Olomide and Werrason. Papa Wemba announces the face-off to an enormous gathering at two adjacent stages where the superstars and their entourages compete in an epic test of musical endurance and style to see who can win by playing the longest.

The subject of his own experiment, Höller consumes fly agaric mushrooms and is ostensibly affected. He describes his experience before he starts to sing a German Christmas carol for children, “Ihr Kinderlein Kommet” (O, Come, Little Children) more or less comprehensibly in overtones.