When I look back on my youth, I see that I had a habit of coming out in order to be recognized. Yes, sometimes I even put myself down so that the others could help me up. I showed them that I needed them. Be it that I actually exposed myself, undressed or even did a striptease. And not just physically, I also admitted mistakes and weaknesses in order to be heard and understood. For example, I said: Look, my big belly, because I wanted to hear, no, it's not fat at all. Attracting attention by showing my badness. I think that was the Zeitgeist and I wasn't the only one looking for applause by understatement. Bluffing wasn't popular back then, or only assholes and capitalists wanted to present more than they are. Make yourself smaller and then let the others carry you. Give them the chance to show feelings towards you. In the 1980s the tide began to turn and in the 90s you had to show quality, whereas earlier it was about amateurishness or diletantism. Martin Kippenberger expressed this paradigm change clearly in the early 1990s with his work Keiner hilft Keinem (Nobody helps nobody). I first saw his work at Galerie Nagel in Cologne. I remember it well because the work impressed me.
Fishing for compliments is out of style these days. You know who you are, you can check reality because you can google all the information you need. Asking a human being seems to be too complicated, the robot does it better. Only facts are required. No sentimentality, just sanity. I think sympathy falls by the wayside, unfortunately. Everyone only has to think of themselves and their interests, otherwise survival is no longer possible. Somehow it's a shame and I'd like to object Kippenberger's work with: Help each other, be nice to each other.
Saturday, 22
Lumo
My plan was to participate in the Lumo event. The box was already prepared, including decoration (which looks a bit like a porcupine). Lumo takes place in Nema Kunku on My Farm, not far from the Sukuta traffic light, as Marit explained to me. Yea, I got even a little excited about it and was looking forward. The day before yesterday at the Bojang River Lodge, where the meeting of the Gambia Women Business Club was held, the Norwegian, who is one of the organizers of the Lumo event, asked me if I would like to bring my work to the event. She would provide me with a table. Certainly why not. But unfortunately my voice said goodbye and this morning only a pathetic croak escapes my mouth. It's a shame, but how am I supposed to explain my work with such a non-voice. In times of Corona where health comes first, the visitors there would only keep their distance, especially since it is a family day. And my work is not that family oriented. It sounds like an apology, and of course it is. It's my torn nature that leaves me unsatisfied, but now I have to be sensible and put my health first for recovery.
By the way, I got a voicemail from the Gambia Women Business Club yesterday that they gave me an award. I was so much surprised because I never thought they would consider me.
I came across Sheena Gowda on the internet yesterday and she captivated me immediately. I find her very inspiring. So I took the effort to transcribe what she says, although you could just watch the video to get her thoughts. But I wanted to give her words extra meaning by writing them down. Also, to tell myself, that's interesting, don't forget. Just copying something is almost like a ritual for me. During my art school days I did this a lot, which made my fellow students, who saw me doing it, smile. I particularly remember a text by Agnes Martin. Even as a child I did it with translucent drawing paper. But I think I'm repeating myself.
Art is about how you look at things
... but there is a moment when an idea and a material comes together.
... having brought something home to my studio and looking at it doesn't necessarily then lead to a work. It could be that action actually takes me to something else. These gestures of material locating or looking for one material and finding another, all these are certain processes of making or how work comes about. For the formal concerns of a work is very important and I see it as a big challenge to bring about an idea through a formal language and that is usually underlined by the material that I use. The material also has a different context of its own and so I try to either transform the material without changing its identity too much and try to weave in my own ideas in the larger sense of the work, so both of them exist side by side. At no point has my work been sculpture, in the pure sense, it's always been a relationshio to space or your relationship to it as a viewer, which is the case with the work Behold which was done for the Venice Biennale. First time when I worked towards Behold I had with me already the raw material for it, at least one part of it, which is the hair rope. i have been seeing this hair rope round around car bumpers for a long time and in the early 90s when I was becoming aware of materials for their own sake I also collected the hair rope because it was a very interesting object. I think it is used on the vehicle as a talisman. There is the question of being in control of a vehicle, at the same time there's a great vulnerability. Each rope has probably hundreds of individuals' hair within it of all genders, ages, communities, so it was really a coming together of people and that was the starting point of that work. I felt that this aspect of the work would be underlined by creating a mass of it, so I joined up about the thousand pieces of this hair rope, so the whole thing came about four kilometers. The next aspect of the work was to bring the bumpers, because there's a contrast between the organic material and industrial material like a car bumper, so the rotundity of the steel bumper, the softness of the curvature of the bumper contrasted with the black of the hair, for something that I said okay now, now it's a question of "how do I use these two?" and I thought like having the steel heavy elements being held up by the ropes was already a certain statement about the strength and the contrast between the materials, so that's how Behold came about.
... that's the kind of that thing that interests me, where form, material and context come together. The moment of transformation. When something is very definitive there's not much more to say about it. Then you find something tha's in that moment of being and not-being or becoming, I think that's far more challenging and interesting to actually appropriate for what you want to say. Art cannot be a kind of an illustration of an issue and I don't consider art to be an agent of social change alone. It occupies other spaces as well and I think one of it is about the exploration of language and the exploration of language actually leads you to philosophy, to aesthetics, to cultural differences in the way we see things or in the kind of things we engage with. i think art also about how you look at things, how you evaluate things around you.
Tuesday, 18
Almost two weeks have passed. It's like nothing happened. I kept trying to recover from my cold. I feel fit, but somehow still tired. No energy in the body. It's probably a permanent condition that I should accept. Since Christmas we have a new TV, Smart TV, but have not yet used the internet facilities. I'm quite happy with the programs, even better adjusted. Luckily we now have GRTS (Gambia Radio and Television Service) and can follow the African Cup Of Nations matches. The Gambia had qualified for this football tournament for the first time in history, has won the first two games and will play the Round of 16.
But something has been important to me in the last few weeks. I met an artist friend that I think I mentioned earlier. We have known each other for more than thirty years, when she was at MALOLA studio with her band Schrill and I recorded them. About twenty years later we met again at the fireworks on the Rhine, on Swiss National Day, August 1st, 2008. She had just returned from Peru and was adjusting to Basel. I told her about Gambia. Some time later we met in a café in Kleinbasel. It was called Francesca, i think. She told me about her project to buy a ship to hold events there. I told her that I would like to do something in The Gambia. I can't remember whether I already had the idea of the art center in my head. In any case, she soon realized her project. It opened in 2011. I was taking photos at the opening so I can roughly remember the date. From idea to completion, three years is ok. Compared to my ten years it seems to be nothing. It had taken her a while until she found the right ship and then converted it from a shipping barge to a cultural location.
Anmari Mëtsa Yabi Wili Driving Sounds & Arts
Thursday, 6
love this, could be me
I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing; it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice. (Text 152) Pessoa, Fernando The Book of Disquiet Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
Tuesday, 4
Happy New Year.
Unfortunately I am not well at the moment,
but hope to recover soon.
Likewise there is a general internet outage
in The Gambia. The issue is been handled
with utmost urgency. We apologisse for the
inconvenience caused.
Art Space Work of the Month
Magnus Zeller (1888-1972) - Riders in the Thunderstorm, 1936, lithography, 47.7x60.5 cm