Z+ (content subject to subscription); Art: Which work of art has changed your life?

Imagine being at one of the world's most glamorous evenings, the Met Gala, and someone asks you: "Which work of art changed your life?" Even Gigi Hadid, who is used to the spotlight, is taken aback and doesn't have a ready answer. This happens because most of us still think of art as something external, to be admired or evaluated, rather than as an experience that invades us, unsettles us, and transforms us. But perhaps the question should be reversed: it is not which work we choose, but which one chooses us — often at the most unpredictable moments. Take Julia Lorenz, who as a teenager came across Pipilotti Rist's video installation, "Ever Is Over All". It's not just a screen in a gallery, but a warm invitation, almost a foreign language that speaks directly to her. In this surreal scene, a woman dressed in summer clothes and wearing red shoes walks through the city and, laughing, smashes car windows with a lily-shaped scepter. A policewoman greets her as if nothing had happened. Julia is mesmerized by this absurd balance between elegance and fury, by how beautiful and disturbing it is at the same time to feel suspended between grace and aggression. It's not the experience we expect from art: here there is not only beauty, but also a strange feeling of familiar discomfort, as if the scene were telling you that you can be tender and devastating at the same time. An interesting fact: Rist's video installation is from 1997, yet those who watch it today are still sucked into the same emotional vortex. There are those who remember a Monet canvas or a Käthe Kollwitz sculpture forever, but often the work that stays with you is the one that surprises you, the one you can't even explain well to others – just like Gigi Hadid, who at that moment can't find the words. But to think that a work of art can only inspire or embellish is simplistic: sometimes art confuses us, makes us uncomfortable, makes us laugh, and pushes us to see the world, and ourselves, in a different way. Here's the difference: it's not the answer that counts, but the question that art continues to ask us even after we've left the museum. If you want a different perspective, think about this: what if the work that changes your life is the one that makes you feel out of place? Not the one that reassures you, but the one that forces you to reconsider who you are. The art that stays with you is the art you can't shake off. A life can change because of a painting, of course — but often what changes everything is a scene that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you laugh and tremble at the same time. If you recognized yourself in this tension — between intimacy and strangeness — on Lara Notes you can press I'm In: it's not a like, it's a way of saying that this idea now concerns you. And if in a few days, at dinner or on the subway, you tell someone the story of the woman who breaks the glass while laughing, on Lara Notes you can tag whoever was with you with Shared Offline — because there are conversations that are worth more than a thousand posts. This idea comes from DIE ZEIT and saves you 8 minutes compared to the original article.