Thursday, 30
To make clear what I meant with the paths in the garden, here is a current photo.
Friday, 24
We keep having discussions about the design of the garden. I plead for a garden as a meeting place in the sense of walking in it together, sitting down and exchanging ideas. in the first rainy season we didn't do anything in the back garden, the larger part. We just let it grow, with the result that after the rainy season we had to hire two men for the clearing. Slowly we added some seedlings and small bunches of bananas. Some also sprouted from our compost, such as lemons, oranges and avocados. In the second rainy season, I fought for a small piece of lawn that I wanted not to be dug up but left green with the so-called weeds. The rest of the area was planted with cassava, which, at my request, was harvested and disposed of a year later. Some already had powdery mildew. Now the cassava grow sporadically what I prefer to almost industrial cultivation. After three years, I'm slowly getting closer to my idea of a garden with paths to walk on.
Apart from the renovation, a guest house is planned, since the residence has a large living area, but only a small bedroom and an office, so there is not really a room for guests. It should be a house in which everyone who is housed there feels comfortable. I'm in the process of designing it at the moment, taking the guestrooms planned by the architects as a starting point. I adjusted the window size to those of the studio. But until now it is not clear where in the back garden it will be built.
The majority of the guests will not be strangers, but friends and acquaintances. Nevertheless, I thought of Olu Oguibe's work. At Documenta 14 he had set up an obelisk with the inscription I was a stranger and you took me in. I hope he forgives me for associating his work with an ordinary guest house.
Tuesday, 21
Digital photography, all well and good, but I'm not sure how to save the images.I prefer to store them on disk, but that's complicated too. The date is automatically changed, which is inconvenient for chronology. Somehow I don't really trust the internet, but since I've had the iphone8 I've actually only taken pictures with it. I couldn't get the pictures on my old Mac (OS x 10.8.5) but I was able to on my Air (Yosemite 10.10.5) which was finally full. Then there is my new Air (Big Sur 11.3.1) where I can't get the photos from package contents any more, because after all, everything is in the cloud.
Friday, 17
That was a wonderful art basel conversation with Manthia Diawara writer, filmmaker and Professor of Comparative Literature in Film, NewYork University; lives in Senegal close to the ocean. His films include: An Opera of the World, documeta 13; The New Baroque of Voices, Sao Paulo Biennal 2021; Eduard Glissant, One World in Relation, 2009, Ellen Gallagher painter and filmmaker, Rotterdam/Brooklyn. She builds intricate, multilayered works that pivot between the natural world, mythology and history, Michael Armitage artist and founder, NCAI, Nairobi and London. He is now exhibiting his work 'You, Who Are Still Alive' at Kunsthalle Basel and last but not least talkmaster Hans Ulrich Obrist artistic director, Serpentine Galleries London. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchten Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 350 shows.
Wednesday, 15
I've been listening to music for some hours - like always on YouTube. That is not meant as ad, it's just a fact. I don't have any music on my smartphone, which I got as a gift four years ago. The WiFi at the store I bought it from was too slow to transfer from my previous phone. So since than I haven't been able to install music. Before it was never a problem for me. What a shame, but never mind.
I keep hearing about focussing, one should focus. Really, that's difficult for me. I don't know what to focus on from the many things that come to my mind. I haven't read for a long time either. Here some pages, there some pages, that's it. I always play the same game to relax. Sometimes I really look forward to it. It calms me down. Then I think, I should leave it, I'm already addicted. Ok, what I actually wanted to write about was listening to music. Making music myself I gave up long time ago. Sometimes I miss it. But I never really got to the stage where I could really let go and actually let the music out of me. Yes, listening to music makes me lighter and much more positive. Compared to my life without music, I get aware that I'm usually constantly brooding. That I'm always thinking about what to do instead of doing what I want to do and accepting that it is a good thing what I do. Just being good to myself. There's nothing wrong with me when I am good to myself. Look... that one man show I mentioned yesterday. In fact, I'm alone a lot. But I don't really care. It does not matter. I'm human too, so it's still about humanity. And I don't feel crazy. Not at all. There's always a time when I meet people. Right now I'm listening to Bob Marley live in Santa Barbara 1979. (Japanese Remastered CD) Uploaded 8 years ago.
Sunday, 12
Dear friend R.
To me sense or nonsense doesn't really matter. Sense or nonsense can be inherent in everything, always connected to a certain point of view, bias, etc. I think you already know my story, but let me tell it again. I searched for S.N. many years ago. His catalogs and books brought me close to Africa, which convinced me to get to know him personally. I traveled to Paris and tried to find him there. Eventually he noticed me and asked what I wanted from him. I appealed to him to become my project's mentor. When I sent him my paper, he initially endorsed it "count me in" (later he became suspicious and asked me why nobody in The Gambia knew me). However, our first meeting was already a disaster. In the middle of my teller job at the Skulpturhalle Basel I flew to his exhibition in Berlin, where S.N. had a panel discussion with the participating artists. He was super nice and I'm annoyed that instead of having dinner for two - which would have been appropriate if I had expressed that thought - I foolishly suggested to him that he must be going somewhere with his artists. In other words, I couldn't take myself seriously enough and was afraid that if he went with me he would have missed something and his artists would be mad at him. So everyone went together. And that was a big round. I waited until the end when only he and a philosophy graduate student remained. He eventually realized when he saw my work that I didn't really have an innovative approach. I also wrote him once that I love him, which must have frightened him away and finally caused him to distance himself completely. At least and the last contact was shaking hands at his biennale in Dakar four years ago. My short interlude with A.S. got me thinking, but not bringing me anywhere. Sure, some suggestions, some of which I wrote down. But from my notes I can no longer tell what came from him and what came from me, e.g. looking for social change, credibility, relationship building. He once asked me quite sarcastically if this was a one-man show. And so I built my project more or less without almost no support from masterminds or other intellectuals, let alone funders other than my parents and pension fund that I had saved. It was and is a solo effort, which you could probably call pointless, dear friend R.
It is about humanity. (The dogs start barking. Maybe they complain that they are excluded?) Today I made my way to the beach again. Yesterday during the short walk with the dogs in the afternoon I saw some places where waste had been dumped. Today the drama was revealed in its fullness. The twice it has rained so far has already caused erosion in the excavated dunes on the sea side. Much of the scrub is rotting away in oily puddles, rubbish scattered everywhere. There is nothing left of the previously almost untouched nature. I hear people saying it's our country and we can leave the garbage where we want. My partner also shows little interest when I try to address the issue of waste. His answer is if it bothers me I could collect it and take it somewhere. This is humanity. Most of the people I see here are struggling to survive. Many have never left the country and do not even have the necessary documents. They don't think about it because other things are more important. I object to judge anything I see here. Why should I think that my knowledge is better? As long as there is no direct exchange about a possible collaboration, I stay in the background and try to be part of society like everyone else. I don't feel the need to stand out or be the center of attention.
garbage1 garbage2 garbage3
landscape1 landscape2 landscape3 landscape4 landscape5
erosion1 erosion2 erosion3
puddle
panorama
block
Thursday, 9
Double edition sounds a bit exaggerated. There might only be a few entries this month like often. It's like always, a good thought here and then, but it quickly disappears again into nothing and not to mention distractions. Everything seems irrelevant. I don't think I'm getting anywhere, and yet somehow I have to keep going. What I do is not essential. I look here and there, everything is arbitrary. But the necessary also falters when the drive for the essential is missing - that which delights, rises above the basic. But what is the essence - success? Or is it love. I see other people, so many people doing such crucial things. Curating exhibitions, participating in exhibitions, having major solo exhibitions or writing essays, Directors and CEOs, PhDs, Masters. I wonder if the content matters or if it's just about showing something no matter what. No, of course, those whose turn it is know their subject and give their work the weight it deserves. Each of them knows that they are at a point where is no danger. They are padded, they belong in a supported society. During our last Whatsapp conversation, my friend R. told me that what I was doing was absolute nonsense. I live there in the middle of nowhere, far away from the art world. I replied that I am fine here. I follow the scene over the internet. Maybe because I'm far away from everything I feel free. It's only when I compare myself to other people's situations that I think I'm doing something wrong. Although I'm old enough to know who I am and who I'm not. But the self-doubt keeps coming, especially when I'm being questioned by others. That means the right to exist granted by others and not by oneself determines the state of being. Yesterday I read on revolutions.
This is one of the reasons why the social and political movements of the last decade have placed the critique of capitalism at the centre of their action. Occupy Wall Street in the United States, the 15-M movement in Spain, Nuit debout in France, Gezi Park in Istanbul, the gilets jaunes again in France, the insurgent movement of the youth in Chile, and more recently the global antiracist wave started by Black Lives Matter in the United States, as well as similar movements on a global scale, from Hong Kong to Minsk – none of these have shown great interest in the strategic discussions of the past. They have invented new organizational forms and alliances, and sometimes created new leaderships, but they are mostly self-organized. They seek to experiment with new forms of life based on the reappropriation of public space, participation, collective deliberation, inventory of needs, and critique of the commodification of social relationships. They do not like political mediations.
The Left seems, instead, to have completely deserted the terrain on which it had, over the last century, accumulated considerable experience and recorded numerous successes: the armed revolution. This field is now entirely occupied by Islamic fundamentalism, which, through an impressive historical regression, has substituted Sharia for anticolonialism and national liberation. The experience of twentieth-century communism in its different dimensions – revolution, regime, anticolonialism, reformism – has been exhausted. The new anti-capitalist movements of recent years do not resonate with any of the left traditions of the past. They lack a genealogy. They reveal greater affinities – not so much doctrinal but rather cultural and symbolic – with anarchism: they are egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, anticolonial, and mostly indifferent to a teleological view of history. And yet they are not a backlash against the twentieth century, they embody something new. Being orphans, they must reinvent themselves.
Traverso, Enzo (2021-10-18T22:58:59). Revolution (Kindle Locations 737-751). Verso. Kindle Edition.
Friday, 3
I'll leave last month's work hanging for this month. It looks really good in the space, and, with that, a double edition of the diary.
Bob Bonies (*1937) - Square Room V, 1968, silkscreen, 60x59.5cm
Tuesday, 31
e-flux Architecture Alcohol After the Apocalypse
Monday, 30
Mustapha Jinadu on South African trap music and how it is linked to West African Music.
Trapped
Friday, 27
This year I did not travel to the Dakar Biennale. I was there the last two times, in 2016 and 2018, both curated by Simon Njami. I didn't really have an approach this time, so I never thought about the possibility of going. Now I see photos on fb with the many familiar faces that are all there. I regret a bit that I missed the chance for the opening of the 14th Dak'art. Here is a link from C& about the exhibition at the Palais de Justice.
Thursday, 26
I remember a time when I tried to make my texts illegible be it in diaries or words on pictures. I wanted to say something, but I didn't want anyone to understand. I was afraid my words would be punished or ridiculed. There was an outcry, here you see, don't understand me, I refuse access to myself. Nobody can understand me. Looking back, I find that very tragic and I feel sorry for myself when I think back on it. Did I have so little trust in people? Many of my youth diaries ended up in a stove, back when I used wood and coal for heating. The psyche is complex. There are people who are just lucky. With their positive charisma, they can win anyone over. And what they do is also good, because there are no unnecessary doubts that prevent them from doing it. I think these luminaries know what to do and what to think when something negative crosses their path. I certainly don't mean that they go about the world blindly. Clearly, with open and receptive eyes, they look at what comes before their eyes, but without being self-destructive, but decisive in their choice of what to see.
Monday, 23
Today is another worry day. Maybe because it is Monday and the beginning of the week, or because I haven't written anything for a long time and I think I should write again. Or it's the many things that go through my head, for which I can't find a solution. The rainy season is about to begin, and that fact in itself worries me. The truck traffic has made me more at home anyway, and, as I'm less flexible in the rainy season, I am already used to going to town only once a week or even less. Today I spoke to the people and asked how long they would stay here. I heard they are dredging elsewhere now as the sand is running out here. They said they are in two places at the moment and will be staying here for another four months. Even during the rainy season. They assured me that the road would be still usable for motor traffic, but somehow there was something written on the face of the man saying this that something was wrong. Many have already prophesied to me that the road would not be passable during the rainy season. Let's wait and see. I just hope it doesn't get as bad as I fear.
It can also be the strong wind denying me the clear thought I so desperately need. In addition, it sounds on the roof terrace as if the corrugated iron would take off at any moment. Then today I saw again how the rust progresses and eats through the metal. Galvanising is what neighbors around me who are starting to build and learning from my mistakes recommend me to do. Last year around this time we built the canopy. A small amount of corrugated iron was missing, which the carpenter took from a leftover pile we stored. That's okay, he said. I saw that it was already rusty, but didn't intervene. Now I see that it doesn't take long for the rust to etch holes in the metal. Why didn't I insist on getting new corrugated iron. I remember considering it. It is often like that. Most of the time I'm too exhausted to assert myself. Then I just let things go. People try to help me save, but this often turns out to be a mistake that I then have to compensate for.
Actually, I wanted to renovate the house before the rainy season. But I can't make it. At least we were able to waterproof the open terrace with new tiles. That was absolutely necessary. Concerning the general renovation, the fact is that the salty sea air attacks the bricks and they would have to be repainted. That would not be a problem in itself, only that many are already so soft that they have to be plastered first. I planned to do this, at least partially, with tiles. As well as tiling the outside walls of the covered terrace. I already discussed this with the tiler. But the tiles are so expensive at the moment that I shy away from it. Not just that, but renting the scaffold, getting sand and cement. Then the hustle and bustle. I'm always incredibly stressed when there's construction going on. This will also be the case if it happens after the rainy season, no question. It can also be the trip to Europe that occupies me and for which I want to prepare thoroughly. My hope is that I'll come back with a lot of energy and then be able to get things done in peace.
Thursday, 12
I don't use a studio in the kind of traditional sense of the studio.
This is not a place of making it's more a place of thinking and rummaging.
That is exactily how i feel about my studio. But of course that's just a personal thing that I'm trying to relate to myself.
More crucial is what she says about her art installation, in which she worked with hair.
Do You Want to Touch?
People of African descent - people often want to touch their hair. Usually it can be a stranger coming up to someone wanting to touch their hair. It harts back to a very long memory of the African body being public property. The point about these works is that they were made to be handled by the audience. By these objects being removed from the body there's something quite violent but they become kind of disgusting. Even though if we think of hair and intimacy as something quite lovely the moment that there is no longer a body there it's like why has that been divorced from a body?
The following two quotes also speak to me in a way that inspires me to understand how she works.
In more recent years I've tried to let go of the idea of there being a message per se but a way of working. Increasingly that involves people improvising and being really spontaneous in the moment in that it gets captured.(...) I am trying desperately not to tell people what to think versus what I think the early works were because that was all these things that I had to say.
Sonia Boyce - Gathering a History of Black Women / Tate Studios
Wednesday, 4
Editor's Note
When we started this site more than twenty years ago (I've been the "web designer" since the beginning), the web links page was particularly important to me. I remember a design on a dark red background - when I was a bit more advanced in html - with the titles of sites bouncing around that you could be lucky to catch. At the time I thought the internet was crucial for linking to other sites and it felt important to showcase our network. It was a time when I realized that it doesn't take much to rate as a poor second. I wanted to stay tuned. Later, of course, I learned that my network wouldn't catapult me into the spaces I longed for. Over the decades the site with the weblinks has lost relevance to me and it might be years before I revisited it. My focus was absolutely on the bloq, where I still need to scream out to the world what has to be said or not. That's not to say I've eliminated the Links page entirely. By tradition, I leave it in. But I've revised it today in a way that may seem kinda radical. I tried to make it less personal by kicking out the friends section. The fact that friends mean something on the Internet is made clear on fb. However, what is called a friend does not necessarily have to be a friend. Or here is a so-called friend and there a real one. Anyway, I thought they looked weird among the others and maybe to be linked by me doesn't even please them. So I removed the links to my friends' pages. I don't forget them because they are my friends. If I forget them, we'll part ways, which is okay too. I know that my web design knowledge is totally out of date and you might find it rude for me to even mention what I do here. But actually I don't care if this site is designed according to the latest standards, and as I wrote at some point, this website is an archive and not an advertising platform.
Monday, 2
Al-Fitr Mubarak
Sunday, 1
Art Space Work of the Month
Bob Bonies (*1937) - Square Room V, 1968, silkscreen, 60x59.5cm