The gorilla

It was two years ago when I went to see Franz Gertsch’s seasons in the Kunsthaus Zurich over lunch time. Maybe I got hooked by the sheer size of the paintings, I still don’t know, maybe I was just hungry, but I left the museum with a huge stuffed animal gorilla (see picture). The Japanese outside the Kunsthaus were taking pictures like crazy of me while I was securing the animal in the car (yes, the one in the picture). The police of Zurich couldn’t stop me, the Autobahn couldn’t stop me, even the heavy rain couldn’t stop me. I drove the gorilla all the way to Basel.

I don’t know why, but I was thinking about the drive with the gorilla when I read Max Küng’s article about leaving Basel in the newspaper Tageswoche. I know many people who moved from Basel to Zurich (including me for some time, switching these days to a sometimes strange double life between the two). It’s for studying, the jobs, the bigger little city, love. Everybody has their reasons. Fine with me. What, however, irritates me very much are people who switch from a full Basel identity to a full Zurich identity. Meaning everywhere they live must be the greatest place on earth (what do I care?). What they are doing is a metamorphosis from Basel forever to I could never ever again exist in this boring provincial village. It’s a kind of absolutism. Being absolut is most of the time not very intelligent. So relax, get a gorilla at the Kunsthaus Zurich and drive it all the way to Basel (it’s not that far).