…this?
Or this.
I’ve planned an exhibition for the beginning of April, for just a weekend. It’s a space that basically you book, and they just let you do the rest. So there’s no curatorial aspect for what that’s worth. I was telling a friend who cannot make it and I was trying to tell them, that it really isn’t anything. I mean it’s just nothing to me. I make stuff all the time. I’m just doing this, because to be honest there are some people who want me to do this. They like to see things on walls, is a supposed gallery space. Me, I’m not fussed. I’m happy staying at home or doing other things. But it makes people happy. What I’ve never really liked is exhibition openings. I really don’t like them. So, I pretty much try and disrupt them. I told the friend that I have smoke machines, laser lights and have a bunch of old portable record players, going. The place has many rooms, so I there are safe spaces for people who can’t cope with people. But I try to make a mess of the whole exhibition opening thing. I’ve hated them from when I first went to them in my first year at art school. So if I have any control over the situation, I plan of ruining it. Ruining that pompous looking at art being sophisticated thing. She just couldn’t understand why I would do that. Isn’t the point to showcase the artwork. Well, not really. That’s what other people want me to do. Not me. And that’s the thing.
I’ve already made the artwork. It’s nice when people say nice things I suppose, but I’ve already made the items. It’s kind of done. Even posting here on the interwebs, it’s not really a thing. It sometimes makes me a tiny bit more motivated to create if I have a platform I suppose. Previously I’ve booked exhibition spaces to kind of make me make more, make me consolidate my ideas into something vaguely coherent. But this time it’s done nothing. I have no feelings, except that I’ve got some work to do to get things ready to hang on the walls. But this time it hasn’t really made me more motivated to make artworks, because I’m already doing that.
I think there’s a huge myth that people who create things are doing it to be praised, to seek attention, adoration. It’s much more complicated than that. Now I’m getting to be an old man, I’m in a really happy spot. Happy at the lack of worldly success. I think I’ve been to some extent hugely successful. I’m not famous or anything. I get to make whatever I feel like it. I did try for a good 15 to 20 years. But nothing really happened and for that I am grateful.
So I will be having a Picture Party 5-6 April at the Watch House in Balmain. I will be happy to see you there. But there’s no need to come if you don’t want to. There will be no fine wines, because I don’t care, and the drinkers don’t buy my work, so fuck those cheap drunks. But there will be good food, because I do care about that. I won’t be having this reverential pat me on the back circus. It will be a something, and nothing all at the same time.
Saint Beckett 