Song of Songs

Jannis Kounellis: Untitled/ 1971/ Naples

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In the poetic Untitled, 1971, Kounellis painted an extract from the score of Bach’s St John Passion on a dark green canvas and had a cellist playing music from the oratorio in front of it on the occasion of its first exhibition.

In medio ecclesiae aperuit os eius et implevit

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eum dominus spiritu sapientiae.

The Glorification of Saint Dominic

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Our ears

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Our ears touch each other: the left of yours the right of mine. They listen.

The ozone-filled street noise filtering from the outside into our other ears cannot fade away with its broken sound wave that

the continuous double-fugued humming of two conchae touched together narrowing on the way inside is as reserved for the sea

as the way you lean on the flute with your lower lip bending your hip along its floating line

and the sounds are blown away among your sparkling rests.

Your ear is touched by mine.

We've pushed our ears to each other's and were just listening

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I asked my wife to play these scores.

Rest on the Flight into Egypt

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Then Saint Joseph have found out the angels' sex.

"Song of Songs"

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Your stature is like a palm tree,
and your breasts are like clusters of grapes.