Lisa Kellner

05-02-07
People are looking at me.  I have effectively called attention to  myself. People did not pay to see this.  They didn’t ask to be a part of it.  My
forehead has intruded  upon the expected.  I am different, no longer unobtrusive. Someone just read me.  I just want to hide.  This is definitely out of my comfort  zone.  I can’t wait to peel them off.  I don’t want to be the object  of art!
I went into Strand and checked my bag.  The bag check guy looked at me with extreme suspicion and angst.  

05-03-07
Presuppositions
1.  Everyone, or at least many, would be doing this.  I find myself looking  at other people’s foreheads.  Where are my cohorts?  I wear it alone (at least it feels that way).
2.  That it would be about the words and their meaning and not so much about my uncomfortability with the words on my  head.

05-04-07
The “taken” is gone and I miss it.  Must be the oiliest part of my  forehead.  Last night I went through security at JFK.  I made sure my hair was
hanging down.  I went through fine. Several people have asked to read my forehead.  Only one knew what it was 
about.

The funny thing is that with the state of out world and our politics. I already feel like everything has been  taken away.  Everything that is important anyway:  lives, freedom,  acceptance, peace.  We are such a  destructive animal.  We talk the talk but just look on any interstate to know how inconsequential the environment  really is to us.  We can’t wait to  plow down and make bigger and better, destroying everything in our human  wake.  We are the tsunami!

05-07-07
I heard this historian, Dr. Charles  F. Bryan, on the radio say that for over 500 years there have been various  empires that have dominated the world.  History has shown that each empire has had an approximate life span of  125 years.  Each empire fell because  they spread themselves  too thin.  He suggested, subtly, that perhaps the  United  States was doing the same now and that he hoped  our choices would not bring on our demise. Could it be we are nearing our shelf  life?  Will everything really be  taken away?

Johanna

05-01-07
After some hesitation last night, I decide to go through with the project. I decide to put aside my concerns, such as traveling to Chicago, work-related occasions, and going to a wedding (luckily only on the 18th), and be a part of a public artwork. After all, I am an art historian working with public art, and how often are you offered a chance to be part of one…?! (At the same time I am collecting newspaper clippings about the Estonia-Russia conflict. Also the international politics are about public art now!)

The application is great fun, weather is good, people are nice. In the subway I feel giggly. I try to behave as if everything was just normal, but I guess I don't do it very well. I am hugely interested about the people's reactions - the whole project, to me, is more about the publicity of the act than the personal. The first curious question comes five minutes after leaving Cooper Union. I am the second person they had seen with the text. They tell me that when seeing the first guy, they had thought it was a drunken mistake. (And I wonder how many will think that...)

I have to spell it out to the guy at a deli; I see the lips moving inside a taxi on Broadway (he got it right). Generally, people who think I don't see them stare boldly. In the subway people pretend they don't notice.

On my way home I think how it must feel to be "different" - whatever that means in the context of the situation - or celebrity for that matter. Knowing that everyone sees you in a way they normally don't see me. I feel I need to behave more correctly than normally. I feel that I am being watched. I also wonder whether I am gonna like to have this feeling constantly for the next few weeks, and wonder how long it'll last on my skin...

At night, I feel as if the tattoo had always been there. It feels natural - at least at home. I also admire the beautiful writing. I was afraid it would look crappy, but it doesn't.

I'll go to the movies, since it feels like wearing new clothes at home where no one sees you… I'll have to go show my forehead to the world!

05-03-07
I don't know whether it's because I have loads of other things on my mind, or because I am just very easily adapted to new situations, but on my third day I hardly remember it's there. I have to force myself to even register other people's reactions. Admittedly, it's not even nearly as dark as when it was applied. It is already showing the first signs of fading… Very sad. Turning my head from here to the mirror, only 10 feet away, I can barely see it.

After the first day I've had much less attention that I anticipated. Even the visit to the police department went without any hassle. I still think it is pretty, and that it suits me, but, to be honest, it doesn't provoke many thoughts about life or death, as I presumed it might. It feels slightly indifferent. I love the aesthetic of it though, and the whole idea of decorating your body. I'm planning other occasions to wear henna. Maybe not on the forehead though…

One reaction I did not expect is a physical one: a hot, tingly feeling on my forehead, as if the henna was burning the skin… Not pleasant, really. It makes you wonder whether it is really burning into your skin and will stay there forever. Even though you know it isn't possible. So I guess it wouldn't be indifferent if it was there for good! Luckily it will be taken away.

05-07-07, Chicago
In Chicago people notice me more than in New York. Or at least they ask about it more – even though it is already less visible than the first days in NY. Perhaps the New Yorkers have seen it all. They are not surprised by anything.

05-11-07
It's gone. It was still there, barely, on Tuesday. On Wednesday it was gone. Too soon, I thought.

I girl from my class said she would have done had she known it would lastsuch a short time. To me that was the disappointing part - I had hoped to create more attention I suppose. On the other hand, originally I was afraid of being visible in situations I wouldn't like to. Because of the subtle nature and the short duration of the tattoo that did not happen. So, you worry about something and then you're disappointed when it doesn't happen. Yup.

Katherine Rust (at TimeOut)

05-03-07
Yep, I’m that girl. The one you see on the subway with a cryptic/I’m-trying- to-be-edgy-and-cool tattoo smack in the middle of her dome. You know you want to look, but you (A) feel embarrassed that it might be some weird birth defect, (B) don’t want to give me the satisfaction of thinking you care about what it is or (C) don’t care what it is. Well, here’s what it is: A henna tattoo saying “EVERYTHING WILL BE TAKEN AWAY” written backward…on my forehead. You might have read about it in last week’s Art section, and if not, you should. While I wouldn’t say that the experience so far has been life-changing, the tat has already garnered a flutter of reactions ranging from “I hope that’s not a real tattoo” to “What the hell did you do to your head?”

I find myself asking the same thing.

Though I will admit, responses so far have been a fantastic source of entertainment—especially from the suits who frequent the Midtown East Mexican restaurant where I bartend. So go ahead, look; I dare you. Then tell me what you think…everyone else has. Here are some of the better ones:

    * “Ay dios mio! You crazy!” – Busser at the restaurant
    * “I think you should tell that artist that she has it backward” – Old dude with a cowboy hat on the 6 train
    * “Everything? Yes—take away my husband.” – Slightly drunk woman at the bar
    * “We’re no longer friends.” – My friend
    * “This is very upsetting, namely because I will now have to take valuable time out of my day to make fun of you.” – My supportive coworker Carmela Ciuraru

Anonymous

05-01-07
the afternoon of may 1, i was hennaed at cooper union prompted by my fascination with tattooing and similar body markings, as i'm knee deep into holocaust studies.

while i felt pretty cool, i noticed kids in goth with pink hair and a woman with stretched earlobes, all of us marked in some way. i wondered if i was simpatico with them. 

that night i went off to hebrew class.  some classmates came to inquire. i found myself immediately allaying people's suspicion, by fessing up that this was an adrian piper art project.

yesterday, wednesday, i went to the cooper-hewitt, where i volunteer, and i found myself unable to remember what was written on my forehead and had to look in the mirror from time to time to remind myself.

i went to frost/nixon last nite. i was the talk  of the row and found my responses to queries not only garbled but false. that public exposure, unlike my anonymity of walking village streets, made me come home and take a long  shower to see whether i could reduce the obviousness of the henna.

this morning, morning two, i found the henna to have outlived its welcome.
i went out with a hat to cover my forehead.

Tess Korobkin

Only the girl looks into my face. “Is it just me or does that girl have some shit on her head?” she practically shouts to her friends as I pass them walking down dark Broadway to Canal. They don’t turn around.

I want to reach out and squeeze the hand of the young man who read me at a stoplight.
He deciphered the text with unabashed focus, but still asked, “What does it say?”
“Everything will be taken away.”
 “I respect your individuality,” he said after a pause and strode ahead of me across the crosswalk with one sidelong glance back. He gave me way too much credit. This is not a display of brave individuality but of groupthink. I am one of fifty branded with a message that is not my own. I am a fundamentalist. I am the card reader who reveals a future reflecting what you fear.

I sit and sun myself on the steps of Union Square. A guy with tattoos covering his arms and crawling up his neck looks at me with admiration tinged with suspicion: “Is that a tatt?”  “It’s henna. Temporary,” I reply.

The man sitting on the subway floor at 7th ave stops aimlessly strumming his guitar and gathers his many bags. Pausing on his way, he stops before me with a look almost of recognition, and in a voice soft and clear he says: “I like your adornment.” For a moment, I am flushed with vanity. The sensation is warm like when I first looked at my lettered face in the mirror.

I went to B&H to buy a camera. The man helping me saw an article in the paper about the piece. “I wondered who would do that, who would want to put that on their head, and then you walk in here. What did the artist mean by that?”
 I say I’m not sure but I try to suggest something positive about letting go of material possessions and imagining that as a kind of freedom.
“See, that’s really not what I get from that. I mean it just seems s negative. It true that you loose things in life and that you dies, but your soul lives on. It denies that your soul would be left.”
We talked about the hopelessness of the statement. I asked him what he would prefer. “One good deed can change the world. Because you might do a favor for someone and they might save your life someday—I read about things like that all the time. God gives you those opportunities to do something good.”

On Friday night the party and the music pour onto the street in Forte Green. The photographer—it’s his party—pauses to read my forehead. “What will you take away from me?” He asks. He searches for something to give me. He hands me the torn half of a 20 dollar bill—half of his winnings on the basketball game. My half says “INS!”

Looking into the mirror, I am glad for my eyebrows, eyelashes and eyes. I scream at my forehead: I will not be taken away! You cannot make me believe that!

I go to the Pioneer to buy vegetables. The guy at the door watches me. He works there. “Is that religious?” He asks pointing at his forehead and looking at mine, “From church?”
“No,” I explain.

I am enjoying having so many people look into my face. I love that first moment of openness, but then dread fills me as they begin to decipher the message. I didn’t choose it—I carry it—but it is what I have to offer them. Often they finish reading and give an “o-kaaaay…” look, as if allowing me my belief while distancing themselves from it. I am the one in the subway posed at the top of tall stairs shouting “Repent! The end is near!” I carry a small doom with me.

There is a certain drama when no one engages it. I sit with E at Parkside Donut eating eggs, toast and home fries as we do most Sundays. Behind the counter familiar faces look at me, but not long enough to read what is written there. Chicken is fried. Salads, sandwiches, pancakes, and rice are assembled for here and to go with and without extra hot sauce and syrup.  Orders are placed and delivered. Around me everyone is eating and talking—alone or in pairs. The tables only seat two. I am the asteroid poised above earth that makes this everyday scene fragile and doomed. I am the one who foreshadows disaster in this hearty oblivion of eating and doing.
But I am a false carrier, because I believe in that helpful oblivion more than a shadowy belief that everything will be taken away.