Ana Prvacki & Irina Aristarkhova: dOCUMENTA (13): 100 Notizen - 100 Gedanken No. 043

In this notebook, artist Ana Prvacki and scholar Irina Aristarkhova discuss the social idea of the greeting and the gestures and ethics of hospitality. As an artist of Serbian/Romanian heritage, Prvacki recalls stories of her grandmother’s generous nature even in dark times, and her childhood mistake of putting snow in the boots of guests she didn’t like. Prvacki’s personal approach to etiquette allows a certain history of artistic and political hospitality methods to be portrayed: from the faux pas of Borat, and the Singapore Kindness Movement, to the Obamas. Aristarkhova’s voice adds a theoretical lineage of the history and ethics of hospitality, from Immanuel Kant and his concept of “civility” to luminaries such as Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King. Due to different approaches to hospitality protocols, awkward tensions will happen, but as Aristarkhova says, “dealing with difference is better than pretending we are all exactly alike.”

Ana Prvacki (*1976) is an artist based in Singapore and Los Angeles.

Irina Aristarkhova (*1969) holds a joint appointment in Women’s Studies and Visual Art at Pennsylvania State University.