Thursday, 26
"To become a personality is not the absolute prerogative of the genius, for a man may be a genius without being a personality. In so far as every individual has the law of his life inborn in him, it is theoretically possible for any man to follow this law and so become a personality, that is, to achieve wholeness."4)

Personality

This wholeness means, in simple terms, the revelation of the true self to which individuation leads. As long as we have not gone through this process, we cannot really be. As it is for the colonized being who, while displaying all the signs of humanity, has been stripped, as Hannah Arendt writes, of all qualities that make him a human in his own right, the passage from a social or political non-existence - a parenthesis within which no form of responsibility is exercised in the state of emancipation - constitutes a dangerous, high-risk operation. It is double-edged because, for as long as the colonised being remains in the limbo of subjection, he can still enjoy the benefit of doubt. He is not. That is to say, he does not have to assume the acts he is made to commit. But as soon as the passes through the revelatory ordeals of initiation, it becomes impossible for him to take shelter behind this kind of legal vacuum that guaranteed him relative impunity; he becomes fully responsible for his actions.

And this inititiation, which Jung likens to robedo, the red work, which for my part I compare to the path that leads to emancipation, will bring on irrevocable consequences. We can speak not of rebirth, as we do wrongly, but of birth. A state comparable here to a form of immortatlity: "The Western, Chinese and Islamic alchemists use the meaning of red in an identical way, and the red sulfur of the Arabs which designates the Universal Man is directly derived from this red work, gestation of the athanor. So it is with the red rice in the bushel basket of the Chinese, which is also fire - or blood - of the athanor, linked to the cinnabar, in which it is transformed alchemically, to symbolize immortality."5)

This alchemical transformation is the ultimate state of the great work. If, for Jung the psychoanalyst, the great work is linked to the ultimate encounter with oneself, in alchemy, as Bloch wrote, it is a question of perfection taking the form of the philosopher's stone. It is the ultimate secret that transforms all the minerals found on earth into gold, that substance that then seems the symbol of perfection. (...)

The artist

The artist, we have often been told, must be a rebel, one who revolts against the established order, injustice, lies, etc. The romantic figures of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Kerouac, to name only these, contributed to reinforcing this cliché that has influenced all the young artists in the world. But the work on any society, the desire to change behaviour and to see with new eyes, first passes through the gaze we turn up on ourselves. Some artists claim to address the issues of insecurity, cowardice, lies, corruption. They castigate the established order by setting themselves up as new messiahs, delivering anathemas, judging, condemning. But artists are neither above nor below others. At their side, perhaps. The artist, because he is an artist, is not an infallible being who could take the place of the God killed by the West. He is human. And what gives his art its power lies perhaps in this excess of humanity. The Socratic "know thyself", once inscribed over the temple entrance in Delphi, was a call to no other crusade than the one bringing us closer to ourselves, and thus to others.
4) Carl Gustav Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul.
5) Dictionnaire des symbols.

Simon Njami, The red hour. Dak'Art 13, 2018


Wednesday, 18
... one of the main questions is if you are an artist at all - because you can proclaim to be an artist, but you are not an artist or you can be better doing something else. So when I was teaching that was one of the tests I would ask. How you know that you are an artist? That is the main question. To know if you are an artist or not is like a breathing. You don't question breathing. You have to breathe otherwise you just die. So you breathe. If you wake up in the morning and you have some ideas, you have to make them. They become a kind of obsession. When you have to create and you have this urge to create you are definitely an artist. But you are not great artist. You are just an artist. To be a great artist there are all different types of rules. And it is like you are kind of obsessed. Its like there is nothing else in your mind to realise the work. And it is the complexity, the intensity you put into your work. And also great artists have to be ready to fail. Which is what not too many people do. Because when you have success in a certain way then the public accept you in a certain way. You somehow start involuntarily reproducing the same images, the same type of work and you are not risking. Real artists always change their territories and they go to the land they've never been. There is unknown territory and then you can fail. And you can risk. And that failure actually is what makes this extra. Ready to fail. That makes great artists. And again, as a young artist you want to be famous and rich - then you just can forget the idea of being an artist. Because money and success is not aim. Its just side effect. Sometimes it happens in lifetime and sometimes not. But it doesn't keep you way from working. What is really interesting for me is that you need courage. (then she is talking about Columbus and her teacher whose idea i cannot share completely. i understand it, but i cannot identify with it and then about her work) ... and mostly I do the work I am afraid of. If I am really afraid of an idea it is exactly the way I have to go. Because if you do things you like you will never change. There is nowhere to go. You are always doing the same shit again and again. But if you do things you don't know, you are afraid of something different. It is important to go to this different pattern to let something different happen. (she gives an example of her students when they had to workout ideas they before considered as trash and which finally came out as the incredible ones) ... you have to know which media which tool is the best for your expression. So for me to recognise a good performance artist is very simple. He really can perform, the idea might be total shit, the execution can be wrong. It’s just how he stands or sits in the space how he occupies the space physically. And what the standing does to everybody looking at that person. That kind of charisma makes the difference. It is a certain energy you can recognise right away. And you can learn later on how to execute things, ideas and all the rest. But it is about an energy you cannot learn. That you have to have. It is just there when you are born. (about her work with Robert Wilson)... the next step has to come with your body and mind together otherwise you are missing the moment of presence.
Marina Abramović Advice to the Young 2013

https://youtu.be/8Ck2q3YgRlY

Tuesday, 17
Fortunately the daughter is fine now. She got a Caesar and Alpha became a happy grandfather.
Anyway - the government impeded the deliverance of sand. That's why we again have a reason that work on the building site Tintinto cannot continue. When Ous and me have gone there this morning the site has lain waste. No workers, just the gateman (to use Alphas's words) and his son on their mattress in our studio. After we passed Mama Africa. A place I wrote about several years ago. Isha Fofana is rebuilding her art center, which was destroyed by the former president. And it is like she does it in no time. I was there one and half years ago, but she hadn't started her exhibition room yet. That very place she has completed in less than one year. Yeah, I think it is because I am stranger here that everything is going so slow.

Monday, 2
Ok, he didn't show up. But today I've learned that his daughter is fine and back at home. So the meeting will be today half six.

Sunday, 1
Today in the evening we have a meeting with our constructor Alpha Jallow to come to conclusions regarding the finishing. Hopefully he can make it. He briefed me about his daughter being in hospital in Banjul where he was heading to when he called.




The actual state of The House of Culture Tintinto.