I = for Impasse (Re- #4)
Article for Re- #4 (The Boring Issue), 2000
Full text:
I for impasse.
This article contains 2306 words, including the title.
I meet a lot of people, both friends and strangers, who are in the middle of their personal acts of expression, but when I hear them talking, and compare their intentions to the final result, I very often think that the process of making is better than the expression of the product itself. I wish I could blame this on their lack of talent, but when I look at the results of my own acts of expression, I get the same feeling that a documentary about the making of that particular act of expression would have been much more interesting.
When I became aware of this frequent observation, I wanted to know why and that's how I got here, sitting behind my computer, writing words like:
When I look at myself, I find myself doing things for the sake of expression all the time.
In order to transform ideas into products of expression I have a daily list of trivial, time-absorbing things-to-do. Not only do I sit behind my computer, I find myself in front of Xerox machines, on my way to appointments, driving to shopping centres, discussing matters over the phone as well. I copy treatments for new projects, I have meetings to discuss work, I buy candles and different kinds of wine to match my cooking. In order to transform ideas into something communicative, I’m in a constant process of options, doubts, decisions, and reflection. But,if you put all these smaller acts of expression together, what bigger vision do they express? Of course it may take a lifetime to answer that question, but to get a clue, successful acts of expression are necessary. Not only do they look good on my C.V., they have a physical effect on me as well. What happens is
that the kick and the adrenaline of success lift me up into an area that words can only describe from a distance. This area is called experience and experience is important for two reasons:
- Experience places me by definition into the moment, I coincide with the world around me and what I'm experiencing is life itself. I'm not longing, I'm not striving, I'm not hoping, making or doing. In moments of experience, I simply am.
- At the same time, experience is the engine of communication. Successful acts of expression, caused by myself or others are the bridge between me and you. Moments of shared experience, are the only moments in whixh we can truely connect.
So experience defines who I am and connects me to the world and the others.. And this is where trouble begins for me. Because very often when I’m confronted with products of expression the only experience I get is an absence of experience. What I see is just ideas, concepts, too small or too isolated to convey a strong vision of who we are or where the world is going. It’s easier to turn things around and define many acts of expression by the lack of vision that they express. There’s something rotten in the act of expression that disconnects us from experiencing life.
Lets recap: I need to express ideas in order to experience life, because being in the moment of experience defines me and my relationship to the world. But, when my act of expression is not based on ideas but on their absence, the experience that both you and I, reader and writer, get from it is less powerful. The lack of experience keeps us from being in the moment, which leaves us disconnected from each other. Instead of life and development we experience impasse.
Of course I know that the subject of impasse is a private obsession, but when I raise the subject in conversation, the experience of impasse is very often acknowledged as a sign of the times. A lot of people agree that we are living in a society that provides us with almost everything we need to be happy in life, except for the experience of happiness and the experience of that life. The lack of opposites, the absence of ideological conflicts, the minimum of social resistance and the maximum of economic opportunities, devaluate the true experience of happiness and life. Instead, we experience impasse. To me these moments of impasse can start at any time, at any place, alone or in the company of others. Moments full of options, but not being able to choose. Standing in the supermarket in front of eight different brands of yoghurt for the same price. In a museum being unsure whether I understand or misunderstand the setting. In politics, not knowing whether to vote left or right, because they both lack the same amount of ideology. In my bed at night, feeling connected with my boyfriend, but never being sure if that feeling is mutual. And, writing this article, not knowing how to avoid impasse and get you and me in a state of being in the moment.
With 1468 words to go, the next question is: How to get out of this deadlock?
I suggest that we dramatise our acts of expression and use impasse as a source. Because what we need is a way to work not in spite of, but because of the deadlock that we are in. And if the process of making is better than the final result, why not make it the subject of our acts of expression? Or at least we should try to incorporate this shift of focus into the ideas that we want to express. Apocalipse Now, for example, is a good movie, but the documentary about the making of Apocalipse Now , made by Ford Coppola's wife is ten times more breathtaking because it’s real. For me the fiction of Apocalipse Now is not complete without the documentary about the making of the movie, because the combination of the two gives me the possibility to experience life instead of impasse. And if we dramatise our own situation at this moment you and me are characters in my act of expression. We are in the middle of a plot and the aim of this article is to find a way out impasse. By dramatising both the writing and the reading of this article, you and me, the writer and the reader who are both in search of meaningful acts of expression, become part of the final product. In a theatrical setting we thus become examples of the impasse, but at the same time investigate that very impasse. The conventions of drama, such as a premise, the development of time, raising a conflict, a crisis, a climax or a resolution offer a form of catharsis which conveys form and thus force, on the incapacity of expression. Like Baron Von Munchhausen pulling himself out of the swamp by his hair.
I see you reading the words I wrote and You see me writing the words you read at the same time.
The next setting is a campfire on a late September evening. We warm our hands and share a blanket to escape the evening chill. Under the blanket it's warm and we tell each other stories as a pastime.
You ask me what I do in moments of impasse.
I say that my reaction in such moments of impasse is very often escape.
You: Escape?
Me: I start eating without being hungry, I switch on the telly, I go
shopping, play with the cat or begin a hobby collecting stuff.
You: Can you be more specific?
Me: Sure. I start masturbating without sexual desire. Not sexual arousal, but the lost moment of impasse gives me the desire to masturbate. What else can you do in dead moments of the day, if you are bored with something or lack the concentration for the next important thing? You can light up a cigarette, but if I'm somewhere private I
prefer masturbation.
You: The penis as a cigarette for non-smokers so to say.
Me: If you're a man, yes. My handmade horniness is my escape. Of course there are many other forms of escape. In fact television, for example, is almost completely dependent on it. And museums say they offer 'art', but often pull you into a kind of vacuum as well. Just tools to escape the reality of our life like alcohol and sex.
You:How do you know?
Me: You're supposed to take what I say for granted. We're in the middle of a plot, remember. I'm the writer and you're the reader. You must remain in character.
You: Yes but...
Me: Which brings me to another escape that I find fascinating. It's at the opposite end of social behaviour, compared to masturbation. It is an escape that is socially so widely accepted that we don't even notice that it has the same escape mechanism in it as masturbation. It is not a physical, but verbal form of escape. Half of the air time on television is filled with it and many social encounters start with it. The escape I'm talking about here is what I call I-speak.
You: I-speak?
Me: Yes, I-speak. Talking about yourself and your intentions.
You: What do you mean?
Me: Talking about myself and my intentions. For example. If I say: 'I feel that Holland needs my paintings' or if I say: 'If you say my name, you say Jazz' I'm talking about myself as if I were someone else. I become a spectator looking at myself as an actor performs on a stage. This split of spectator and actor prevents me from being in the
'moment', which is the best definition of reality. Now I didn't say: 'I feel that Holland needs my paintings', that was Georg Baselitz in a recent interview about his show at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. And I didn't say 'If you say my name, you say Jazz' either. That was Rita Reys.
You: Rita Who?
Me: Rita Reys, the jazz singer, in a comeback interview. But, since I am telling you about myself and my intentions the same principle of escape is happening right here, right now.
You: I see.
Me: Yes, me too.
( Exercise: Collect I-speak interviews. It doesn't matter who's being
interviewed. Sportsmen, politicians, artists, heroes, victims, straight,
gay, whatever religion or non-religion, the more the better. Identify
with the I-speaker. Read it as if you were being interviewed and you
were talking about yourself. Learn all the I-speak samples you've collected by heart and use it when you are in public, during social encounters. You'll be
surprised to hear how many people share this pastime.)
Me: It means that all the 'I's in I-speak are compatible.
You: So, although I don't paint, I'm not lying when I say that I feel that Holland needs my paintings?
Me: Or I feel that Holland needs my paintings because when you say my name, you say Jazz.
You: 'Because I'm prepared to give up my private life in order to achieve a change of mentality in mankind.'
Me: Whose I-speak is that?
You: Madonna's.
Me: 'Because I have the gift of being completely myself in crowds and thereby capable of transmitting to them what has inspired me.'
You: Madonna again?
Me: Aafje Heynis. 'Because when I sing Brahms, I see this lonely person in that beautiful text by Goethe wandering in the storm and I experience what he experiences. And when finally the choir begins in C-major, the feeling of comfort is so strong that it touches my soul.'
You: 'Because when I wake up, I masturbate, I brush my teeth and go to the sex cinema. When I return home in the afternoon I've had sex with thirty people. I surf the internet and stuff myself with candy, because my body needs calories. I cruise all the chatboxes and ask men to come to my house and rape me. I leave my front door open, so every night, six or seven men come in and I do everything they want me to do. It's a
miracle that I'm not infected with HIV, but I need it.'
(We go on talking in I-speak for a long time. It doesn't matter who's
saying what, since we are united in I-speak.)
Me: In this plot you and I are identical words with identical meanings.
You: And your time of writing coincides with my time of reading, hmm?
Me: Eh.....yes.
You: Go on, write your line please. I’m waiting.
Me: (hesitates) Where does escape bring me?
You: Let me answer it. The point is, it brings you nowhere. The longer you jerk off, the more you make yourself get lost. You let yourself disappear to the point of losing reality. You disappear with a great longing into the small death of the orgasm. In I-speak you are escaping the reality of your life, looking at it from a distance. In a different way than masturbation, but still, your experience of reality gets lost. Still 140 words to go. What's your act of expression gonna look like? Come on, surprise me. Other readers are waiting.
Me: I don't know.
You: (slaps me in the face) Asshole. I'll tell you. You want to show something that by nature doesn't want to reveal itself, because it is focused on disappearing. You want to turn the disappearing from experience inside out to an experience itself. And you want to achieve this by showing the ways we try to escape. Is it that hard to make your
point?
Me: How do you know?
You: Your time of writing is my time of reading, remember. You wrote it,
I read it.
Me: That was not where I wanted to go. I still have 6 words left after
this..
You: (have turned the page already).
Article for Re- #4 (The Boring Issue), 2000
Full text:
I for impasse.
This article contains 2306 words, including the title.
I meet a lot of people, both friends and strangers, who are in the middle of their personal acts of expression, but when I hear them talking, and compare their intentions to the final result, I very often think that the process of making is better than the expression of the product itself. I wish I could blame this on their lack of talent, but when I look at the results of my own acts of expression, I get the same feeling that a documentary about the making of that particular act of expression would have been much more interesting.
When I became aware of this frequent observation, I wanted to know why and that's how I got here, sitting behind my computer, writing words like:
When I look at myself, I find myself doing things for the sake of expression all the time.
In order to transform ideas into products of expression I have a daily list of trivial, time-absorbing things-to-do. Not only do I sit behind my computer, I find myself in front of Xerox machines, on my way to appointments, driving to shopping centres, discussing matters over the phone as well. I copy treatments for new projects, I have meetings to discuss work, I buy candles and different kinds of wine to match my cooking. In order to transform ideas into something communicative, I’m in a constant process of options, doubts, decisions, and reflection. But,if you put all these smaller acts of expression together, what bigger vision do they express? Of course it may take a lifetime to answer that question, but to get a clue, successful acts of expression are necessary. Not only do they look good on my C.V., they have a physical effect on me as well. What happens is
that the kick and the adrenaline of success lift me up into an area that words can only describe from a distance. This area is called experience and experience is important for two reasons:
- Experience places me by definition into the moment, I coincide with the world around me and what I'm experiencing is life itself. I'm not longing, I'm not striving, I'm not hoping, making or doing. In moments of experience, I simply am.
- At the same time, experience is the engine of communication. Successful acts of expression, caused by myself or others are the bridge between me and you. Moments of shared experience, are the only moments in whixh we can truely connect.
So experience defines who I am and connects me to the world and the others.. And this is where trouble begins for me. Because very often when I’m confronted with products of expression the only experience I get is an absence of experience. What I see is just ideas, concepts, too small or too isolated to convey a strong vision of who we are or where the world is going. It’s easier to turn things around and define many acts of expression by the lack of vision that they express. There’s something rotten in the act of expression that disconnects us from experiencing life.
Lets recap: I need to express ideas in order to experience life, because being in the moment of experience defines me and my relationship to the world. But, when my act of expression is not based on ideas but on their absence, the experience that both you and I, reader and writer, get from it is less powerful. The lack of experience keeps us from being in the moment, which leaves us disconnected from each other. Instead of life and development we experience impasse.
Of course I know that the subject of impasse is a private obsession, but when I raise the subject in conversation, the experience of impasse is very often acknowledged as a sign of the times. A lot of people agree that we are living in a society that provides us with almost everything we need to be happy in life, except for the experience of happiness and the experience of that life. The lack of opposites, the absence of ideological conflicts, the minimum of social resistance and the maximum of economic opportunities, devaluate the true experience of happiness and life. Instead, we experience impasse. To me these moments of impasse can start at any time, at any place, alone or in the company of others. Moments full of options, but not being able to choose. Standing in the supermarket in front of eight different brands of yoghurt for the same price. In a museum being unsure whether I understand or misunderstand the setting. In politics, not knowing whether to vote left or right, because they both lack the same amount of ideology. In my bed at night, feeling connected with my boyfriend, but never being sure if that feeling is mutual. And, writing this article, not knowing how to avoid impasse and get you and me in a state of being in the moment.
With 1468 words to go, the next question is: How to get out of this deadlock?
I suggest that we dramatise our acts of expression and use impasse as a source. Because what we need is a way to work not in spite of, but because of the deadlock that we are in. And if the process of making is better than the final result, why not make it the subject of our acts of expression? Or at least we should try to incorporate this shift of focus into the ideas that we want to express. Apocalipse Now, for example, is a good movie, but the documentary about the making of Apocalipse Now , made by Ford Coppola's wife is ten times more breathtaking because it’s real. For me the fiction of Apocalipse Now is not complete without the documentary about the making of the movie, because the combination of the two gives me the possibility to experience life instead of impasse. And if we dramatise our own situation at this moment you and me are characters in my act of expression. We are in the middle of a plot and the aim of this article is to find a way out impasse. By dramatising both the writing and the reading of this article, you and me, the writer and the reader who are both in search of meaningful acts of expression, become part of the final product. In a theatrical setting we thus become examples of the impasse, but at the same time investigate that very impasse. The conventions of drama, such as a premise, the development of time, raising a conflict, a crisis, a climax or a resolution offer a form of catharsis which conveys form and thus force, on the incapacity of expression. Like Baron Von Munchhausen pulling himself out of the swamp by his hair.
I see you reading the words I wrote and You see me writing the words you read at the same time.
The next setting is a campfire on a late September evening. We warm our hands and share a blanket to escape the evening chill. Under the blanket it's warm and we tell each other stories as a pastime.
You ask me what I do in moments of impasse.
I say that my reaction in such moments of impasse is very often escape.
You: Escape?
Me: I start eating without being hungry, I switch on the telly, I go
shopping, play with the cat or begin a hobby collecting stuff.
You: Can you be more specific?
Me: Sure. I start masturbating without sexual desire. Not sexual arousal, but the lost moment of impasse gives me the desire to masturbate. What else can you do in dead moments of the day, if you are bored with something or lack the concentration for the next important thing? You can light up a cigarette, but if I'm somewhere private I
prefer masturbation.
You: The penis as a cigarette for non-smokers so to say.
Me: If you're a man, yes. My handmade horniness is my escape. Of course there are many other forms of escape. In fact television, for example, is almost completely dependent on it. And museums say they offer 'art', but often pull you into a kind of vacuum as well. Just tools to escape the reality of our life like alcohol and sex.
You:How do you know?
Me: You're supposed to take what I say for granted. We're in the middle of a plot, remember. I'm the writer and you're the reader. You must remain in character.
You: Yes but...
Me: Which brings me to another escape that I find fascinating. It's at the opposite end of social behaviour, compared to masturbation. It is an escape that is socially so widely accepted that we don't even notice that it has the same escape mechanism in it as masturbation. It is not a physical, but verbal form of escape. Half of the air time on television is filled with it and many social encounters start with it. The escape I'm talking about here is what I call I-speak.
You: I-speak?
Me: Yes, I-speak. Talking about yourself and your intentions.
You: What do you mean?
Me: Talking about myself and my intentions. For example. If I say: 'I feel that Holland needs my paintings' or if I say: 'If you say my name, you say Jazz' I'm talking about myself as if I were someone else. I become a spectator looking at myself as an actor performs on a stage. This split of spectator and actor prevents me from being in the
'moment', which is the best definition of reality. Now I didn't say: 'I feel that Holland needs my paintings', that was Georg Baselitz in a recent interview about his show at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. And I didn't say 'If you say my name, you say Jazz' either. That was Rita Reys.
You: Rita Who?
Me: Rita Reys, the jazz singer, in a comeback interview. But, since I am telling you about myself and my intentions the same principle of escape is happening right here, right now.
You: I see.
Me: Yes, me too.
( Exercise: Collect I-speak interviews. It doesn't matter who's being
interviewed. Sportsmen, politicians, artists, heroes, victims, straight,
gay, whatever religion or non-religion, the more the better. Identify
with the I-speaker. Read it as if you were being interviewed and you
were talking about yourself. Learn all the I-speak samples you've collected by heart and use it when you are in public, during social encounters. You'll be
surprised to hear how many people share this pastime.)
Me: It means that all the 'I's in I-speak are compatible.
You: So, although I don't paint, I'm not lying when I say that I feel that Holland needs my paintings?
Me: Or I feel that Holland needs my paintings because when you say my name, you say Jazz.
You: 'Because I'm prepared to give up my private life in order to achieve a change of mentality in mankind.'
Me: Whose I-speak is that?
You: Madonna's.
Me: 'Because I have the gift of being completely myself in crowds and thereby capable of transmitting to them what has inspired me.'
You: Madonna again?
Me: Aafje Heynis. 'Because when I sing Brahms, I see this lonely person in that beautiful text by Goethe wandering in the storm and I experience what he experiences. And when finally the choir begins in C-major, the feeling of comfort is so strong that it touches my soul.'
You: 'Because when I wake up, I masturbate, I brush my teeth and go to the sex cinema. When I return home in the afternoon I've had sex with thirty people. I surf the internet and stuff myself with candy, because my body needs calories. I cruise all the chatboxes and ask men to come to my house and rape me. I leave my front door open, so every night, six or seven men come in and I do everything they want me to do. It's a
miracle that I'm not infected with HIV, but I need it.'
(We go on talking in I-speak for a long time. It doesn't matter who's
saying what, since we are united in I-speak.)
Me: In this plot you and I are identical words with identical meanings.
You: And your time of writing coincides with my time of reading, hmm?
Me: Eh.....yes.
You: Go on, write your line please. I’m waiting.
Me: (hesitates) Where does escape bring me?
You: Let me answer it. The point is, it brings you nowhere. The longer you jerk off, the more you make yourself get lost. You let yourself disappear to the point of losing reality. You disappear with a great longing into the small death of the orgasm. In I-speak you are escaping the reality of your life, looking at it from a distance. In a different way than masturbation, but still, your experience of reality gets lost. Still 140 words to go. What's your act of expression gonna look like? Come on, surprise me. Other readers are waiting.
Me: I don't know.
You: (slaps me in the face) Asshole. I'll tell you. You want to show something that by nature doesn't want to reveal itself, because it is focused on disappearing. You want to turn the disappearing from experience inside out to an experience itself. And you want to achieve this by showing the ways we try to escape. Is it that hard to make your
point?
Me: How do you know?
You: Your time of writing is my time of reading, remember. You wrote it,
I read it.
Me: That was not where I wanted to go. I still have 6 words left after
this..
You: (have turned the page already).
)
)
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Een voorspoedig 2133!
Wie zich verdiept in de geschiedenis van tijdcapsules vindt genoeg redenen om er geen te maken. De meesten verdwijnen, omdat ze vergaan of omdat ze worden vergeten. Toch zijn we bezig om er een in Rotterdam samen te stellen. Want ook al zijn we tegenwoordig geneigd om alleen met ironische distantie naar tijdcapsules te kijken, ze bieden nog steeds mogelijkheden. Niet zozeer voor onze nazaten, maar voor onszelf.
Wie zich verdiept in de geschiedenis van tijdcapsules vindt genoeg redenen om er geen te maken. De meesten verdwijnen, omdat ze vergaan of omdat ze worden vergeten. Toch zijn we bezig om er een in Rotterdam samen te stellen. Want ook al zijn we tegenwoordig geneigd om alleen met ironische distantie naar tijdcapsules te kijken, ze bieden nog steeds mogelijkheden. Niet zozeer voor onze nazaten, maar voor onszelf.
Rejected Conceptualism
Inventarisnummer BK53086 - BK53115. Serie van 30 potloodtekeningen. Begin 1 juni 1976, einde 30 juni 1976. Kunstenaar: Jan Hoving. Titel: Zonder titel. Beschrijving: Vierkant met potloodarcering, met begin- en eindtijdnotering. Materiaal: potlood, papier. Hoogte: 54,8. Breedte: 54,8. Staat: redelijk. Organisatie: Instituut Collectie Nederland. Rubriek: Beeldende kunst. Dit werk wordt afgestoten door Instituut Collectie Nederland.
Inventarisnummer BK53086 - BK53115. Serie van 30 potloodtekeningen. Begin 1 juni 1976, einde 30 juni 1976. Kunstenaar: Jan Hoving. Titel: Zonder titel. Beschrijving: Vierkant met potloodarcering, met begin- en eindtijdnotering. Materiaal: potlood, papier. Hoogte: 54,8. Breedte: 54,8. Staat: redelijk. Organisatie: Instituut Collectie Nederland. Rubriek: Beeldende kunst. Dit werk wordt afgestoten door Instituut Collectie Nederland.
Recto / Verso
Interview covergirl Lauren Hutton was photographed by Francesco Scavullo in 1973. She's wearing Galanos - from his exciting fall 1973 collection. Accessorized by Galanos, makeup by Way Bandy, hair by Rick Gilette. The photo was re-photographed by Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm in 2003, with model Uta Eichhorn posing as Re-Magazine covergirl Claudia. She's wearing a black dress by Hermès. Styling by Katja Rahlwes, makeup by Renata Mandic.
Interview covergirl Lauren Hutton was photographed by Francesco Scavullo in 1973. She's wearing Galanos - from his exciting fall 1973 collection. Accessorized by Galanos, makeup by Way Bandy, hair by Rick Gilette. The photo was re-photographed by Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm in 2003, with model Uta Eichhorn posing as Re-Magazine covergirl Claudia. She's wearing a black dress by Hermès. Styling by Katja Rahlwes, makeup by Renata Mandic.
Media Suicide
De 38-jarige Karst T. uit Huissen reed even voor het middaguur in op toeschouwers in een bewuste actie de koninklijke familie te raken. De man raakte zelf ernstig gewond en verkeerde gisteravond in levensgevaar. De man ontweek op de Jachtlaan in Apeldoorn twee afzettingen en reed met zijn zwarte Suzuki Swift in op de menigte. De koninklijke familie zag vanaf een paar meter afstand hoe de man tegen monument De Naald botste.
De 38-jarige Karst T. uit Huissen reed even voor het middaguur in op toeschouwers in een bewuste actie de koninklijke familie te raken. De man raakte zelf ernstig gewond en verkeerde gisteravond in levensgevaar. De man ontweek op de Jachtlaan in Apeldoorn twee afzettingen en reed met zijn zwarte Suzuki Swift in op de menigte. De koninklijke familie zag vanaf een paar meter afstand hoe de man tegen monument De Naald botste.
Destroyed Thinker
In january 2007 two thieves stole a small cast of the Thinker from the Singer Museum in Laren, Holland. Not knowing the value of the sculpture, the thieves started taking the sculpture apart to be melted down. Alarmed by the press attention for their theft, and learning about its estimated value, they burried the sculpture in their garden. A few days later it was found, heavily damaged.
In january 2007 two thieves stole a small cast of the Thinker from the Singer Museum in Laren, Holland. Not knowing the value of the sculpture, the thieves started taking the sculpture apart to be melted down. Alarmed by the press attention for their theft, and learning about its estimated value, they burried the sculpture in their garden. A few days later it was found, heavily damaged.
Rodin research
From 2005 onwards, I have been focusing on Rodin as a research topic. The main question that I ask myself is in what way Rodin consciously helped shaping the mythical proportions of his own artistic persona. By studying his life and works and by studying the timeframe of the second half of the nineteenth century – in which his work came to existence – I seek to create a context of paralel references as a source of inspiration for nowadays artistic practice.
From 2005 onwards, I have been focusing on Rodin as a research topic. The main question that I ask myself is in what way Rodin consciously helped shaping the mythical proportions of his own artistic persona. By studying his life and works and by studying the timeframe of the second half of the nineteenth century – in which his work came to existence – I seek to create a context of paralel references as a source of inspiration for nowadays artistic practice.
Miscellaneous
This is a selection of older works, dating roughly from 1990 until now. It's a reservoir of lose ends. Part of my practice is to go back in time, and re-evaluate previous motives and actions. Therefore, a lot of my works have an unfinished, ambiguous nature. Either they have lost their momentum after they were exhibited, or were never shown outside of my studio, or are just waiting for completion in another context.
This is a selection of older works, dating roughly from 1990 until now. It's a reservoir of lose ends. Part of my practice is to go back in time, and re-evaluate previous motives and actions. Therefore, a lot of my works have an unfinished, ambiguous nature. Either they have lost their momentum after they were exhibited, or were never shown outside of my studio, or are just waiting for completion in another context.
Co*star
Dus toen kreeg ik heel erg de wens, als mens maar ook als kunstenaar, om me te bevrijden van al die dingen... om werkelijk iets nieuws in te slaan. Maar dat gaat niet, want je kan het nieuwe niet bedenken op basis van al die ouwe zooi. Dus ik dacht, ik wil daar van af... en toen bleek dat soap ... bleek een deur te zijn naar... zeg maar dat je die ruimte in je hoofd weer werkelijk leeg zou kunnen maken en als een soort potentie zou kunnen gaan vullen... zelf.
Dus toen kreeg ik heel erg de wens, als mens maar ook als kunstenaar, om me te bevrijden van al die dingen... om werkelijk iets nieuws in te slaan. Maar dat gaat niet, want je kan het nieuwe niet bedenken op basis van al die ouwe zooi. Dus ik dacht, ik wil daar van af... en toen bleek dat soap ... bleek een deur te zijn naar... zeg maar dat je die ruimte in je hoofd weer werkelijk leeg zou kunnen maken en als een soort potentie zou kunnen gaan vullen... zelf.
Retitled
For the last couple of years in a row, artists had been invited who felt at home in a big show environment. This had thrown up a number of lively and playful installations, but this year the budding tradition was in jeopardy: for a variety of reasons there was next to no money for art projects. The only kitty in the budget that might be called upon had been set aside for the printing of the half a million paper napkins that were to be used during the festival.
For the last couple of years in a row, artists had been invited who felt at home in a big show environment. This had thrown up a number of lively and playful installations, but this year the budding tradition was in jeopardy: for a variety of reasons there was next to no money for art projects. The only kitty in the budget that might be called upon had been set aside for the printing of the half a million paper napkins that were to be used during the festival.
I shot Madonna
When she comes past I click away hysterically. Not even with the intention of getting her picture but more because I’m in the press enclosure and have to prove that I’m a photographer or so. I’m so busy with the camera and she goes by so fast that I hardly catch a glimpse of her. The print I have made is blurred. Also that night was the first time she showed up with a black hairdo instead of her usual blonde, so nobody recognized her on the photo.
When she comes past I click away hysterically. Not even with the intention of getting her picture but more because I’m in the press enclosure and have to prove that I’m a photographer or so. I’m so busy with the camera and she goes by so fast that I hardly catch a glimpse of her. The print I have made is blurred. Also that night was the first time she showed up with a black hairdo instead of her usual blonde, so nobody recognized her on the photo.
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