I don't have the time to go to my storage space and dig out my diary from 1979 so I'll have to write these notes relying on memory. Please forgive me if I've got the story a bit jumbled. I was in my last year at MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art and Design) when my teacher/friend the neon artist Cork Marcheschi was awarded the DAAD grant and given a studio and an apartment in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin, just about a hundred yards from the wall. He told me he could give me a place to stay if I'd fly over and help him out, photographing, cataloging and installing his work. So that January I took off for Berlin. It was a cold but wild winter. Working with Cork I met quite a few big leaguers in the art world including Ed Kienholz, who was a serious poker player. And I really dug the Turkish section of town, where I met some great musicians.
I helped Marcheschi install his show at the museum. At the time his marriage to the lovely Donna was starting to come unraveled and we were getting on each other’s nerves. Next door it turned out the sculptor Richard Serra was creating a wax installation. So I hung out with him quite a bit over the next few days, playing the flute, which seemed to calm him down a bit. As far as I could tell he was a nervous wreck, living off of coffee and beer. One of his pieces had recently fallen and killed someone at the Walker in Minneapolis. Supposedly the esteemed Roman Vishniak had drawn it to the attention of the museum that the piece was improperly installed and would soon fall. Everyone chuckled. To make a long story short, if memory serves, the foreman at the foundry was illiterate and couldn't read the plans. He eyeballed it. And Serra was in a state that anyone would be in after their art killed someone. He said he'd never work in iron again, just wax. But that only lasted a short time.
These photos were taken in Tubengin, West Germany, winter, 1979. John Kruth