Michel Auder

Michel Auder

the thoroughly documented, marginally fictional life of Michel Auder, artist

text by ANDREW BERARDINI
portraits by ANNABEL MEHRAN

 

Michel Auder is not the first person to edit his life for the sake of art, but his is surely one of the grandest of such projects. Minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, the truth is that reality can be boring. Even during sleep, a cavalcade of mostly mundane thoughts shove and prattle for space, filling the silence, occupying the gaps in consciousness. Our prayers and worries, petty envies and quiet castigations, the tongue-bitten complaints and heart-crumpling concerns, hopes, loves, obsessions, and lusts all scrape against each other in the long hours. Yes, you have regrets. The word “regret” floats through you like an autumn leaf, back-and-forth in gentle arcs, down and away. But one thing leads to another. Real time is unsettling from the outside looking in.

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