The Good Life

This morning my colleague OB gifted me a bunch of blue portugieser grapes picked from his aunt’s vineyard and invited me to come with him to visit Thomas Duttenhöfer, widely considered one of Germany’s and Europe’s best sculptors. OB had recently met Duttenhöfer at one of his gallery openings, and Duttenhöfer invited him to buy directly from him at home a sketch OB had admired. They eventually made an appointment for this afternoon, but the first time OB phoned Duttenhöfer was away in Paris. Giving me this news OB scrunched his face into a mocking smile that said, “Isn’t that nice?”

OB doesn’t like his job. Before he came here he was a young professor of literature at Mannheim University. In those days he did his work in cafés and by the shore of his favorite lake. And he attended academic conferences in places like Berlin and his beloved Vienna, where in old storied cafés he sometimes happened into stimulating conversations with stars of Europe’s art world. Then the university closed his department. He wrote freelance for awhile, covering exhibitions and gallery openings as he pleased, but in the end a secure job won out. Now he often wonders whether it was worth the sacrifice.

OB still has his pleasures, though, namely art; for which he early developed a love. As a child, when he sometimes visited another of his aunts and her husband who live in Paris, he was steeped in it. His uncle worked there as a photographer and spent most of his days shooting fashion models. Once when they visited OB’s family near Speyer the uncle snuck out to the vineyard and photographed a vine of blue portugieser curled picturesquely around a wire archway. He later sold the image to an association of French vintners. For years they used that photograph of Speyer grapes to market their French wines around the world.

Thomas Duttenhöfer also comes from Speyer, OB told me as we drove north to Darmstadt, still in our workclothes. Entering the city we climbed up through the workaday bramble of the periphery to the Rosenhöhe, formerly the royal vineyard of the Grand Duke of Hesse and now a pleasant public park housing the artist’s colony where Thomas Duttenhöfer lives.

We prowled around his home, a neat, modern concrete and glass place, looking for his front door. Throughout his overgrown yard stood some of his sculptures, most of them surrealistic human forms. A large slanted window formed the back of the house and gave a view into his studio, which looked out onto the park. Coming around the other side we met him on the lawn.

Bearded and wearing disheveled dusty clothes, Duttenhöfer greeted us with handshakes and ushered us into his dining room. Inside there was art everywhere, from framed paintings on the walls and sculptures on the shelves down to the scheme of colors and forms of his furnishings. Inviting us to sit Duttenhöfer retrieved a selection of sketches, and as OB sifted through them, he told us funny stories about the celebrities who had sat for him. After Duttenhöfer had gone on for awhile he suggested a glass of wine. Rising from the table he asked, “Are you wine connoisseurs?” We laughed uncomfortably and said we weren’t, but nodded yes when he said with a smile, “but you are wine drinkers?” He returned with a bottle of dornfelder.

As we sipped Duttenhöfer told us about meeting the Pope, and once being mistaken for Prince Charles. He and OB traded Speyer stories for awhile, too, and after a time OB decided which pieces he liked best and paid Duttenhöfer € 350 for two. As we were leaving Duttenhöfer dug up a few catalogs from recent exhibitions for both OB and I and autographed them. When we said goodbye OB was beaming.

Night was falling as we drove back into the city center. Having decided to eat dinner before going home we fumbled around for awhile looking for a restaurant and finally settled on McDonald’s, as OB had a coupon. As we stood there in line waiting to order OB leaned in and asked, “What do you think Thomas Duttenhöfer eats for dinner tonight? A nice steak?” I shrugged. OB ordered and ate two Big Macs.

Driving south afterwards through the dark OB grumbled about going to work tomorrow, saying he might drink a beer when he got home. Duttenhöfer’s evening, OB speculated, would be better. “After we leave he probably drinks another glass of wine, takes a nap. Tomorrow he gets up when he wants, makes his work. It would be nice, no? Sitting at the window, writing all day?”