Dear readers —
Every time I open my laptop to write my newsletter, I am immediately taken over by a sense of inadequacy that subtly pushes me to vomit a pity party on paper. It’s an odd, sticky feeling that causes me to be redundant and to over-apologize for my shortcomings as if the few months I turned on paid subscriptions (with little luck I must say) forever indebted me to my audience.
It’s a sensation that is hard to shake off, especially because it’s not guilt or contempt; I could deal with those. I am quite responsible when it comes to living up to self-imposed standards. So it must be much deeper—a formula of disgust and apprehension, anxiety if you will. It’s nostalgia for what could have been, and loathing for what’s not there.
All of these thoughts are very abstract and transitory—one minute they exist, and the next they are gone, swept away by new preoccupations about work, life, and whatever else.
Despite their intangible essence, they obfuscate my brain and cripple me for a quick second whenever I set out on the quest to keep up with my literary work.
I feel as if a bleak complaint is the only confutation I can produce when, really, my aim is to spread food for thought.
As you can see, I overcompensate by employing erudite language that’s also quite obnoxious and elevated for no reason.
I have often asked myself if I am entering my Poète Maudite era (without the self-destruction part, no self-medication is involved) or if it’s more of a literary Dark Age prompted by the hectic schedule I have been on since April.
I can only hope for the latter given what historically came after (the Renaissance, if you skipped history class).
Perhaps, all of the above is simply unnecessary mental gymnastics to justify a not-so-prolific season of my life and help me get through the weeks when there are no thoughts to be shared and events to comment on.
On the upside, my ability to embellish words and bend them to fit my needs is the reason why I have so often been tapped into for artist statements and exhibition texts by friends and acquaintances looking to revamp the way they present themselves and their projects to the world. Their satisfaction is my bliss in that case; I am a wordsmith at their service using my tools to prop them up and exalt their talent.
Matter of fact, those are the commissions that inspire my essays because that’s when I get direct feedback and critique or compliments on how well I interpreted their work.
And to be of service to someone in need is the best possible thing that could happen to a person, or at least I think so.
In one of my most recent art dwellings, I was tasked with exploiting the concept of “POST–” as in what’s to behind and what’s to come for POST ACTION, an exhibition by Federico Paviani and Joshua Althaus.
The project pondered the feeling of never being on time that is so prevalent in today’s society by using destitute billboards and road signs as inspiration—a very abstruse metaphor that one could only understand if aided by a text.
The assignment led me to think deeply about time, as I needed to contextualize the installation for the audience and interpret the feeling that the artists wanted to convey with the artwork itself.
Time is a heavily stressed and misused word in our culture.
It’s seen as a constraint rather than an opportunity. We are constantly trying to tame it, stop it, reverse it. There’s never enough—we are always chasing it, trying to grasp and stretch every minute we have at our disposal, causing the exact opposite to happen.
By pursuing “what’s next”, we forget to savor the now, feeding that perpetual sense of deficiency that is the human condition.
Here’s what I wrote for the show:
THE MOMENT AFTER.
Exacerbated by the advent of the digital era, a constant feeling of incompletion and inadequacy afflicts humans at every stage of life. Unlike the other animals inhabiting this world—our existence is defined by an abstruse, abstract, and self-inflicted concept that, for our natural inclination to define and label things, we decided to call time.
Time is inescapable. It dictates our every move. It’s a God-like entity: invisible, intangible, tasteless. It doesn’t smell, it doesn’t make a sound, and it cannot physically hold us back or push us forward. Still, its presence is ubiquitous. It causes us to lie to ourselves and others; it has the power to crush our spirit or uplift us.
There’s never an abundance of time. Conversely, we can never have enough. We drive ourselves into the ground desperately trying to gain access to more. We blame our personal shortcomings on the lack thereof.
Time is such an important feature in our lives that, from a very young age, we are taught how to handle it to forego future mismanagement.
In reality, time rules us. So much so that those living at the margins of this ethereal yet finite commodity are ostracized and looked down upon. We call them outcasts or drifters, we question their sanity.
Secretly envious of their freedom, we act disgusted by them to make ourselves feel important.
We think we can tame time by attributing fabricated figures to it and constricting them to little objects made of the most disparate materials. Our ancestors built towers so that people could know what time it is at every hour. Furthermore, it became a religious predicament with bells ringing on the dot. Time is so valuable, we spend thousands–sometimes hundreds of thousands–to wear it on our wrists as a sign of affluence.
We strive for punctuality as tardiness is an offense, a trait not to aspire to. We praise Northern countries for their reliability and judge Southerners for their nonchalance.
But in its true essence, time has no shape–it’s priceless. It’s a game between the sun and the moon, an endless carousel of Mother Earth. It’s pure physics. It’s a harmonious dance between light and darkness, winter and summer. It’s the natural cycle of life.
It is no coincidence that endless revered authors and thinkers have pontificated upon the essence of time and its relation to the human condition. Most notably, Samuel Beckett in his famed tragicomedy “Waiting For Godot”.
The play is often interpreted as an allegory for the human condition, with Godot representing an elusive goal or purpose that we all seek but never seem to find. Beckett raises questions about the nature of existence, the meaning of life the never-ending pursuit of something greater than ourselves.
POST ACTION muses upon similar concepts by inviting people to take part in an immersive journey where movement is physically stifled and, at times, interrupted by imposing structures. These artifacts represent that sense of heaviness and strife that torments all of us–a feeling hard to shake off as we continuously live in function of what’s next.
The audience is purposefully made uncomfortable to mimic the empty moment in between what has just finished and what’s to come next. The artists seek to represent idleness through metallic installations modeled after destitute billboards and exaggerated imperative signs. What’s the guest to do? Start, stop, or go?
The interpretation of the placards is left to the guests themselves as they become ingrained into the exhibition and take on the role of active participants. As they walk through the obstacles and engage with the different rooms, they are enshrined in a nostalgic atmosphere. They become the abstraction of the “after” as they stand behind the signage, and walk past the message, but they are never in front or ahead. They embody the sense of bleak awareness that comes from understanding what has occurred or what’s in front without ever being able to reach it.
The stroll across the rooms itself embodies the message behind POST ACTION.
Sharing is caring:
1. Kristal Trotter, founder of ACCENTO, has launched her own Substack and it’s great!
Somebody has finally managed to dress footballers well and it’s Marks & Spencer!
I am not big on skincare treatments but I am dying to try Raquel New York.
The Stroll, a HBO documentary about trans prostitutes in the Meat Packing District.
This video about aimless creativity.