"It is all about the first kiss, you know. There is the time before the first kiss, and then there is the time after. The time before the first kiss matters most somehow. And then you somehow synchronize and things just steer into certain places." Sabine used to paint angels. They were relatively large paintings in very fresh and bright colors. She had short hair and this laugh that was not as loud, but as disarming as the Dalai Lama¹s.
And Sabine was smart. She was really intelligent, she knew what she wanted, she would get it. She was a tough cookie, a good cookie, a bright mind. Soft-spoken, gentle, but tough.
She was from the DDR, you know. From the east, just like me, except from the German part, the part that was the Eastern block to the power of ten. She somehow managed to get out of there, of course, and was with us, as one of the first semester students at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach.
She somehow had reasons to leave, Offenbach was just a Zwischenstop (a stop over) for her. She really wanted to paint more, better, make better art. There were more reasons, good reasons, bad reasons, she was in controll of all the reasons. She went to Düsseldorf. This is where she really wanted to be. This is where she knew she belonged.
I saw Sabine Moritz this morning, on page 19 of the New York Times Magazine. With her daughter Ella, and her son Moritz and her husband. Gerhard Richter.
She still paints. And she is still soft spoken. Her Children look a little bit like the angels; they mainly look like her. They seem as smart and as ready to go places. There is more to this photograph by Struth, much more. Sabine sits on the ottoman of the Eames chair, she is in front of the lillies, the window, holding the belly of her daughter.
Richter holds on to a glas table. Behind him "spielt die musik", behind him also: a painting of a scull, behind glass, the corner. His son Moritz ready to leave, ready to run. This is not about the first kiss anymore. This is about the steering precisely into very certain places. She is an extraordinary woman and an incredibly extraordinary artist. And I think she knows it too.
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