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Location: Currently on residency in Basel Switzerland, South Africa

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Well that's just aswell, because something bad just happened to me.

 My friend just sent me a mail in the nick of time (I'll paraphrase):

I hope you are doing well in the distance, that you started your year crisp and unrestricted.

Jack Johnson line: people are only lonely animals with too many tools that can built all the junk that they sell (oh sometimes it makes me wanna yell....)

I was at a overcrowded christmas market of utterly pointless human creations, each creator convinced their decorated brick, cement shoe cactus pot,  knitted coat hanger was what the world and its dwellers had been waiting for. I left heavy hearted with a red shwe-shwe mouse, that I couldn't bear to leave amongst such hopelessness. Later as I found myself alienated in some or other chrome and marble mall the thing I kept thinking about were those graceful wooden spoons that you made for christmas presents.
I hugely value the fact that I can write my ramblings to you after having met you for.....5 minutes? 
They seem clear crystals on streets paved with politeness. And I'm grateful!
Have a beautiful time!
Y

She's Dutch (which might come with congenital madness) and a honey..... 
Emails like that really help me... 
I don't know,  something along the lines of make me believe.
I'm tired and it's a bit cold and lonely here in Basel at the moment. Mainly because I worked really hard last night trying to make something beautiful, so I got to bed at 2, without much joy. But also because something really bad just happened to me.

You got to make beautiful things. Particularly if you know how. Or you got to die trying.

I wanted to bring some work over with me to Switzerland as I've only sold one thing from my Japanese residency exhibition 2 years ago. and I've showed them a bit in Cape Town, but unless you're one of the chosen you can't really reach the commercial galleries. Besides people in Cape Town don't really collect art in the way that would help me  (It's the work you can see on my website, which is a joke, because you can't see f%ckall on my website because I make little experience machines that you have to touch to understand properly.)   So this work has been sitting in my lounge, and up about my flat for years now, and it's a privilege for me and I show it to people, but it doesn't sell. I packed three in a crate to bring over here rather naively hoping I could get them here and present them to an economy which is lucky enough to be be able to spend  five or ten thousand euros for something special and/or for advancing an artist's career. I was hoping to maybe find someone who would show them and then if-so leave them here, as otherwise I'm afraid they are destined to live in my lounge.

So I opened the crate just now which is always a bit nerve wracking as they are fragile and sometimes take some untangling, this time it was worse:

They're all pretty broken.
I'd like to say I know I can fix them, but it's a bit of a train-wreck...... & a bit discouraging. 
It doesn't look reparable...



A pale sorry memory of how fragile and engaging these works were can be seen here:

here:
& here:

"Der kampf geht weiter"  which is what Google Translate would have me believe is....

 "The struggle continues."

spent most of the day moving to my new studio apartment .... in the snow,
 
love to you all

Pyrrhus

3 Comments:

Blogger justin fiske said...

Jeez! These things are mothered! Salvage project underway..... wish me luck.
j

January 8, 2010 at 8:29 AM  
Blogger grim said...

What a mess.

Knots, lines all in a heap. So many hours destroyed in a day. So much life crushed. Take hope my friend, this planet is losing species everyday, fish, animals, insects all gone to be recorded in evolution of a species. Adapt or die. A shark kills a man off sunny cove. Why we ask? Is it the cage divers? Is it because there are more people in the water? No, to all of this. The shark is an apex predator. The feeding habits of this ancient creature are changing, the fish stocks are being depleted, the seals are fewer in number and to top it all we have had a hand to play in all of this by stopping the hunting. There are now more sharks in the water and fewer fish. Bit like us. More people than ever before and we have more mal nutrition than ever. So where is this going. Don’t know really needed to get my head away from my head and thought I would tap off a few lines to a fellow out in the cold. My world this side continues to be solitary bit like the shark. I sleep, read and feed. I seem to have forgotten to simple enjoy life. Everything too serious so worried about money and how I am going to fill my car or my face. My thoughts keep drifting to a deserted beach somewhere in panama. Just me, an empty beach and toys hanging in the shade. Boats, kites, boards, rods & my trusty hammock. I seem to live in dualism. The fantasy in my head of leaving it all behind and heading into the wild blue yonder and the daily struggle of paying rent, petrol and bills. Confounded constantly by technology and the rising costs of just staying alive in this crazy rainbow nation. Maybe the world is about to flip on its axis, in that case I don’t want to be on a beach but perched high in a cave somewhere sacred, watching the waters rise, enjoying the spectacle of seeing the civilization that I know disappear beneath the waves. Cape Town carries on in all its glory, pink parades, pink drinks and pink pills. I feel tangled like your crate, a mess with nowhere to land. My head fills up with my failures and not my dreams. My little world shrinking daily, maybe all is indeed in a grain of sand. I have been walking on the beach and have been frustrated that the beach ends. Maybe it is time to do something ridiculous and walk the entire coastline of Africa.

I think of you sitting on the other side of the world. Freezing cold, foreign and far from your wife and child. I say a prayer and hope it is answered.

You are in my thoughts.
Fondly.
Grim

January 14, 2010 at 11:10 AM  
Blogger Unseen Art Scene said...

You need to be found my friend. You have worked hard enough..you really need to be found.

Have a word with the Lisson Gallery here in London.

Director: Nicholas Logsdail
nicholas@lissongallery.com
52-54 Bell Street
London, NW1 5DA
T: + 44(0)20 7724 2739
F: + 44(0)20 7724 7124

Also come and meet up with Chris Spring over at the British Museum and come and visit me if you have a chance.

Best wishes,

Joe

April 27, 2010 at 6:51 AM  

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