Godet, my friend!

  Duo-Exhibition with Sonja Schrader HAUNT, Berlin, 2021     The title of the exhibition Godet, my friend! by Kathrin Köster and Sonja Schrader encircles the moment of holding on, letting go and reforming. Adé, my friend1 The farewell of two people resembles a dance that revolves around relationship: hands in- tertwine, shake - how long? -, the torso insists on its boundary. This is a formal figure. If the desire is yielded, the free third reaffirms the pact made and the final fourth hand consum- mates the agreement. When cheeks touch and lips point sideways to the other‘s ear, eyelids lower, torsos bend - for seconds - the ritual is visibly intimate. If the beckoning hand rises, it signals brief pleasure, the name of the character: You won‘t catch me!! Got it, my friend! The triumph of friendship is the we-stand-for-one-another: I for you, you for me, that‘s us! We push each other, we fight each other, we love each other, even if nobody says it out loud. I look into your face and see my better self. You look into my face and I am glad that you exist! The word God-e (t) is phonetically reminiscent of the German-French use of Ade! Adieu! to herald the ritual of farewell. If the stress is shifted to the o, and tonally shifted to English, Go-det becomes the triumphant signal of understanding. - The term godet, pronounced in French with Dutch roots, is a technical term from tailoring that forms as a wedge-shaped insert in a slit. For example, the basic shape of a narrow knee-length skirt is slit from the hem to the marked hip and pieced wedges are inserted. This process creates width and at the same time a fashion, or cultural, expression. The title of the exhibition Godet, my friend! by Kathrin Köster and Sonja Schrader plays with the dance figure of taking leave and triumph, which is expressed installation-wise in a juxta- position of bodies, their spatial compression, as well as their energetic rearrangement.