I AM THE OTHER (found fragments of life)
I AM THE OTHER (found fragments of life)
FRAGMENT 1:
It is cold. Even in Barcelona it can be cold. Today is Saturday, the twenty ninth of November of the year two thousand and eight and it rains. Consequently, R is in bed with several magazines and newspapers, brought by me. I went out at about ten ‘o clock. I also bought an expensive bottle of wine. We will go for lunch at J’s. J has everything and he knows everything. It is nice when one talks about what ever, but difficult to surprise with a gift. I am aware of the big risk, I bought a bottle of red wine from Mallorca (and J goes to Mallorca a lot). The vineyard is very small, there is some hope that I can surprise him. I was told that if you drink the wine too fast after opening, it might taste like fish.
J. is an editor and has (also thanks to my advice) decided to publish a book of my favorite Dutch writer: Gerard Reve. In Holland he is very famous and he wrote about the house where I grew up (in the novel ‘De Avonden’). This might be the reason why I want his work published. His stories about the adventures with other men in bed (in the early 60s) and his conversion to the Catholic church at about the same time, might make it difficult to have success anywhere else but in Holland. Not to mention his special sense of humor… All together might make of the book a total flop and I fear to be held responsible for J’s bankruptcy.
It will be the ultimate test. If it is a success, I might be able to love the Iberians and land here in peace. Normally, I despise ‘the people’ of the place where I live. It cannot be other than that. An artist cannot be a friend of the crowds. A good bohemian is incapable of that. The only others an Artist can admire are Bigger Artists.
The success of the book might make a happy landing possible. If they accept someone as mad as Reve, they might also tolerate me; better, admire me! Love should go in two directions...
Not all is bad here. Already some places suit me. When I go to museums of Classical and Real Art the test is the presence of a Seghers. If there is one, I can happily collapse in front of it. The Thyssen-Boromisa has one, so it will be a favorite place to die (knowing that another favorite writer of mine is Proust). There are also three Willem Kalf still-lives, so I can choose where to start feeling weak.
J loves still-lives. He is the only person I ever met, who knew about the mad Dutch artist Torrentius. He published the short story written by Zbigniev Herbert about the decadent artist. He knows everything… This might be the start of a harmonious life in Spain: one soul mate, four places to lay my worried head and a harmonious cohabitation with the locals…. On the other hand, why do I want to feel at home here? Why do I want people to appreciate Reve? It is the old enigma; being so much ahead, would I like to be overtaken by the average and be appreciated? Picasso or Warhol might have an answer… They were good prostitutes…
We are back from lunch. Not only did J know the wine, he is a good friend of the wine maker. Maybe I should have bought some sardines and squeezed them into an old wine bottle. He made an exquisite fideus. We talked about many things and I jumped with G from one pattern to the other on his Persian carpets. Two years is to little to stay interested in Dutch contemporary literature and the upcoming book fair in Guadalajara.
FRAGMENT 2:
Lately I have been working well. But I have little time. We have a baby daughter. R studies and works at the same time. This cuts many working days of mine in half. I hope that once she has the diploma in her hands, she’ll find a fab job. All these half days should give me something more than just a great understanding between father and daughter.
I think about death a lot lately, not only because it is a big theme in Reves work. I started counting. Both my grandfathers died young, one grandmother too and my parents… my father died at sixty-three and my mother, all though many would have put their money on her living forever, died at sixty-seven or - eight. So if I die at sixty-seven (I give myself a good year extra than the average of my parents, because I eat healthy; no vegetables from China, fresh fish from the surroundings, drink good Mallorca wines), it still comes down to not nearly enough time to paint a decent amount of Masterpieces.
To have an idea of where I want to arrive, I compare.
Rembrandt made his best work after forty-five. I am behind. He died younger (sixty-three), he had to make his own colors, most probably he drank lousy beer; all things in my advantage, but he was smarter and thus faster in making his Masterpieces. I paint with the devil on the heals, you can imagine. Was that in the old days the case with a show coming up and no work, now Magere Hein (Skinny Henry, as we call Death in Dutch) has this pleasant side effect.
I think to have made progress. This makes that most of my ‘old’ works are disqualified for wearing the name ’Masterpiece’. I know that this is nonsense (what do I know about my own work?); but the question is to die happy, mumbling which foolish thought ever.
Till about two weeks ago, I made one masterpiece after the other. But then there was Black Sunday. I fell flat on my face and butt at the same time. The magic moment broke in a million pieces.
I am slowly recovering, putting all in perspective.
To blame are the ‘art hysteria’ sketches. My views on painting in general and my own work are more profound now. Stealing from the Great Masters is the only right way that leads to the growth of one’s own genius oeuvre.
And this is not all; I also hope to make good money with these sketches! R has her thoughts. I confess suffering from heavy daydreaming, no doubt she is right. After all I am an artist.
I know that most (even art critics and serious painters) have no idea about what happened in the arts before Andy Warhol and so the joy I feel putting Kalf and Bacon together in one frame will escape most spectators.
Oh well, if it does not work financially, at least I had a lot of fun putting the oldies together. And thank god, all this will be over in 1000 years. Who will then see the difference between Morandi and Marini, if anyone still talks about these guys? Why am I painting anyway?
FRAGMENT 3:
What are my days like…
I get up at seven thirty and make two cappuccinos for R and me, accompanied by a slice of toast with butter and jam. I wake up G and I make her warm chocolate milk and another toast. Then I start to tell the girls that it is getting late. Every morning they think holidays have started. As bringer of the bad news, I am not much loved, but during the day it may change. I tried to serve breakfast earlier, but this gave the ladies such a feeling of extra time, that I only lost sleeping hours and did not gain a quiet breakfast. I leave the house with my (made by R) lunch under one arm and G under the other. I leave her at the kindergarten. It is a little drama lately, we wander through the corridor for minutes, her holding strongly to one of my fingers and me showing all kinds of exiting things like coats of friends. Many times it ends with the girl crying bitter tears and her evil father running down the stairs not looking over his shoulder. Partly as a punishment I started to go to the studio by bicycle. It is sad for Schopenhauer, but good for the body. The trip takes ten minutes more, but I calculated that with a healthier body, I might make more Masterpieces in less time. Let’s round it off to eight Masterpieces instead of the calculated five (and the works of Schopenhauer read three times in the subway, red line). And the good physical condition might give me an extra year (if they don’t run me over before).
As usual there is a small but. A big discovery was, that I should paint more vague. This thought came up while reading in the subway. My doubt is; will I get thoughts like these on my bike? Till now I curse all that gets in front of my wheels and the first thirty minutes in the studio I have to calm down.
FRAGMENT 4:
About literature, our newest conquest is C, she wrote a very serious book about the German literature after the Second World War. Amazing that she remained such a nice girl. Germans are generally writers of fat books and she had to read much more than just the complete oeuvre of Heinrich Böll and Ulrike Bahnhoff.
Not so long ago we had dinner at her house too. G fall asleep on my shoulder at midnight (after walking her up and down the corridor, decorated with many, many bookshelves). Did Grass lead my girl to greener pastures?
FRAGMENT 5:
What is this about words? It is Sunday night and I saw one of the worst theatre-plays ever. It showed why people turn into monsters. About two hundred thousand people were killed because two different peoples lived in the same country. Their cultures were slightly different and that is why they were put up against each other by One Bad Man. At the end of his life the Bad Man suffers from Alzheimer, so who can then judge him… He is killed anyway. At least that was a good clean up.
This is all very terrible and tragic, but if presented by mediocre actors, who every now and then burst into very false singing of proletarian songs of a country that doesn’t exist and the main character constantly steps out of the play making one and other clear and on top of that asks us where we stand, I surrender.
I confess; I told the actress (a friend of ours) that I found it a beautiful and very well spent night. Talking about dirty hands and brains… I should have been shot on the spot. And without eight Masterpieces visiting my grave.
One thing puzzles me. Two of the actors looked better dressed on stage than off stage… the play was staged in a poor part of an Eastern European country.
It helps me again to realize, that it does not matter so much what one paints or says, but how one does it. So maybe it was a well-spent night after all. Tomorrow some works will be severely punished…
FRAGMENT 6:
The new studio is a dream. I am ALONE. I thought to have had it under control in the old space, but now I see that I really don’t like people. The in between walls were only 2 meters high, so their scarce presence was often heard. And they often wanted to talk about Art with me…
Not so long ago I went to visit my old studio. Now that was a truly well spent night: videos and techno music. Above the rasta-heads vague landscapes slanted from one side to the other, projected on a big white sheet. All was accompanied by the sound of heavy sighing and burping. Quite surprising; the disc jockey had an enormous panel full with switches in front of him. The evening was organized by 22@, the organization that is turning this part of town into a visual-digital-hip-hop-area for the better situated. The ‘Escoses’ (the artists of my old space called La Escosesa) are very much against the whole thing. It might cost them their cheap studio spaces! I can go along with them up to a certain point. Let’s at any cost leave the old the old. Long live immobility. A truly nice goal, instead of all this running from nowhere to nowhere. Only, some of the Escoses go a bit far, I suspect them of imitating 22@. They too, although under different flag, want to make big money, subletting parts of their not very proletarian spaces. They too are turning this neighborhood into something new.
Through a Milan friend I got in contact with people of the inner circle of Claudio Naranjo and of two of them I have to make a portrait… The guy to have his face immortalized is the architect of the promotional building for 22@, a building I like very much… I used to pass by it cycling to the old studio… It reminded me of the Seagram building in New York… During the presentation of the building (where I feared protests of my dear Escoses) he talked half of the time about Mies van de Rohe and the Seagram… In New York I did not go by bike and I did not read Schopenhauer…
EPILOGUE:
You can travel as much as you want, live in as many different countries as you can, there seems to be no escaping. The past keeps on popping up in the present; all is connected. All is one.
Maps are of no use. All repeats itself, wearing a different coat. You let them in, they take off their coat and there you are… Should I take the subway again? Or paint at home? Never leave the house? Read philosophers till 7/8th of their wonderful books and think all will end well? So that I can find a map that leads me to greener pastures? Too many philosophers in the end come up with a to my mind limping solution that explains all, while the all already presents itself as a perfect circle in everything.
Biggest question remains, how can I influence the number of Masterworks that is written? I often have the feeling of life being a labyrinth where I always end up for the same door: the entrance. I do the same over and over again. What temporarily calms me down is that sometimes I cannot find the light in the bathroom. A stranger in my own life, what a great feeling...
Some things I may have learned. Ironing shirts has been a sad experience for years. While ironing I always imagined the shirts getting dirty again, having to wash and iron them once more. It might be that at this age I see the end of my ironing, how many more years do I still have? Work wise there is light. In the metro it dawned me; I have to paint in a more suggestive way, present a work that shows itself inevitable, but at the same time, for more interpretations open. Instead of showing my little circular labyrinth, I can paint a window through which others see their own life, thinking they see mine.
I am the other.
Barcelona, February 2009.
