DEAR MUSTAFA'...
7 July 2004
Dear Mustafa’,
u asked me to write a few words on art (“my” art? Boh!) and, well, I have to say that I’m not too good at writing since painting and drawing is all I’ve been up to lately, like most people in my business, I guess. I have to try and guess it because I don’t know that many artists and hardly spend time with the few ones I know and whenever I do we hardly talk about art. Art is, in fact such a private part of my life that I rather deal with it privately. It has been the fulcrum of my entire life since the day I discovered its healing power, since the day I found out that making it is even better than just watching it. You enjoy it twice as much than a passive spectator. And you learn more and want to push further and further. And it is all so thrilling because you never know where things could lead you to. There is a sentence that is probably the most frequently recurring sentence (nearly a stock phrase) in art history which is credited to different artists by different sources that says roughly: ‘at each touch I risk my life’. Well I used to regard it as a pathetically pompous statement (deriving from romantic ideals of struggling artists etc…) and I still do partly, but partly don’t anymore. Because I now know that it is true that art (just like life) is mostly about taking risks that means opening oneself up and dealing with whatever is in it regardless of consequences. Then once u have done that, u wait and see what happens. Sometimes you get amazing things in return. Sometimes you can feel like you were time-travelling and you get transported back to your childhood or forward to the future that you will never get to see. And you are the same age in both cases. Sometimes my feet are very ticklish and my eyesight blured and I wonder how could Piero della Francesca long for what he longed for and why couldn’t he do things the opposite way. Sometimes I let a little flower mesmerize me for dozen and dozen of seconds sometimes for minutes and minutes and that’s even more beautiful than getting lost in a beautiful idea.
Dear Mustafa’,
u asked me to write a few words on art (“my” art? Boh!) and, well, I have to say that I’m not too good at writing since painting and drawing is all I’ve been up to lately, like most people in my business, I guess. I have to try and guess it because I don’t know that many artists and hardly spend time with the few ones I know and whenever I do we hardly talk about art. Art is, in fact such a private part of my life that I rather deal with it privately. It has been the fulcrum of my entire life since the day I discovered its healing power, since the day I found out that making it is even better than just watching it. You enjoy it twice as much than a passive spectator. And you learn more and want to push further and further. And it is all so thrilling because you never know where things could lead you to. There is a sentence that is probably the most frequently recurring sentence (nearly a stock phrase) in art history which is credited to different artists by different sources that says roughly: ‘at each touch I risk my life’. Well I used to regard it as a pathetically pompous statement (deriving from romantic ideals of struggling artists etc…) and I still do partly, but partly don’t anymore. Because I now know that it is true that art (just like life) is mostly about taking risks that means opening oneself up and dealing with whatever is in it regardless of consequences. Then once u have done that, u wait and see what happens. Sometimes you get amazing things in return. Sometimes you can feel like you were time-travelling and you get transported back to your childhood or forward to the future that you will never get to see. And you are the same age in both cases. Sometimes my feet are very ticklish and my eyesight blured and I wonder how could Piero della Francesca long for what he longed for and why couldn’t he do things the opposite way. Sometimes I let a little flower mesmerize me for dozen and dozen of seconds sometimes for minutes and minutes and that’s even more beautiful than getting lost in a beautiful idea.
