Take Down

TAKE DOWN

(Response to Deposition by Pascal Möhlmann (2024) )

The painter said they had arranged the scene as he liked, "thank you very much", so the crew of his assistants emerged from the corners to take it down. It was a crucifixion scene, the cross made of two long panels of wood leaned against a horizontal rafter of the studio; another wood panel rested in front of them on a sawhorse where the main figure had stood. The arrangement resembled a giant painter's easel, the artist's attempt at an understated comment on his work. The crew took down the long panels of wood easily; none had been nailed to hold them in place. The young woman in the red sweat jacket, who'd stood on the cross, the two assistants lowered toward the floor. The woman descended stiffly, her head leaning on a shoulder, her neck strained from its long pose. But everyone was glad to see her coy expression despite the trouble. Her left arm that had been firm to the cross she held rigidly upward. She had played as if she'd had been nailed to the rafter, but really all they'd done is stick two long darts into the cloth of her jacket sleeve and those would come out without agony or trial. The assistants let her down easily as they could. The job had its complications; one was trying to push her down as if to get her more quickly out of the way while the other held her up by the arm to make the descent more gentle. They might have tried to coordinate. The one pushing her downward also was taking down the white cloth that hung on the rafter at the same time. It can be tricky to do two tasks at once, just as pushing someone away and holding her up at the same time can be. Two other assistants, the man in the golden hoodie and the woman with the ponytail in black, pulled at the white sheet from where they stood by the sawhorse. The woman in black did so with a backhanded grip, which made the task more difficult -- but she said she always liked a challenge. The two tried to draw the sheet forward, but since they would have to pull it right through the woman in the sweat jacket as she descended the cross, they did not get very far. Some guy on the floor, a rose tattoo on his forearm, reached up to help the woman in the sweat jacket descend. She reached but didn't catch his hand; instead, she held hers just apart, helplessly seeking a dramatic effect. As all this occurred, the expressions of discontent, wonder, and amusement that showed among everyone seemed to ask the painter what value was supposed to have been conveyed in the scene they'd arranged, the same question the onlookers appear to have in the old Rembrandt takes on the crucifixion. The artist never replied; he was busy catching all their ironic poses and contrasts on canvas just as he had plotted from the beginning.