01/05/2020
TO PAUL
The year of 2020 was meant to be yours, dear Paul, and a great year in general (such a beautiful and mystic number, twenty-twenty…) but let’s face it, we failed and your precious anniversary is completely spoiled...
I never got it why we would celebrate the jubilee of someone’s death. Of course, we need to maintain the memory of a person, the more and more idealized image of this spotless mind, but still, I don’t like this framework. And indeed, even though we were planning big celebrations, exhibitions, wannabe-objective-and-still-slightly-nostalgic lectures about you – our inspiring celebrity, the honorable man, the gentleman, the legend – all this became unimportant, postponed and finally forgotten one morning.
I am going through your paintings right now, and can’t help myself comparing it with the current landscape. Where did we go wrong? I’m so curious if you had believed in God, or have served anybody else? The notion of the landscape has been expanding for a very long time, but what did it mean for you? It couldn’t be merely the biosphere, the set, as you depicted it – a backdrop for your gentry friends, a nature with no soul.
I have a feeling that now the landscape is equal to one’s mental state or that of a collective, or of the times we live in; we cannot be really sure, whose augmented mindset we are wandering in when we go for a walk, virtual or real. One thing’s for sure, the set is driven by rage and a global fever. And it feels as if this – our contemporary composition – could recompose or rearrange any second now. We hear and feel the gears – lubed by old pus – start moving after a really long break.
When we encounter the unknown, most of us get scared, afraid and start closing down. We hide in our bunkers (which are of course very comfortable) in the company of our close, beloved ones and wait for better times – hopefully coming soon.
History repeats itself. All this is starting to remind me of a re-enactment of the Theophany from the Book of Exodus.
11/09/2020
BURNER
There are rumours that it might be Gaia who is trying to get rid of us. No doubt we made her upset, we have gone too far – too deep with our tools, too high with our fumes, garbage and speculations. Transforming the landscape till we hit the autoimmune button when we are no longer welcome – our symbiotic contract has been violated. When I look at your landscape of the melting snow, I wonder how to explain to you what a nuclear meltdown is?
My eyes are burning, I forget to blink while looking at the screen, trying to zoom into your painting of that certain picnic. Now, gathering is banned, no matter if in nature or in clubs. Most of these places are closed down now anyway as some of the borders from time to time.
There is this cathedral next to us and also a park in front of our home. We moved here because we liked the neighborhood but since then we have never visited that cathedral, and the park became also just a passage. I guess we didn’t go there ‘cause it’s so close, and if you can reach something anytime it might lose its attraction? Now everybody’s craving for these parks and local churches, cheap flight tickets, expensive flight tickets, or just a disgusting pub, whatever.
I guess at the moment you’re a jet-setter compared to us...
BURNER
There are rumours that it might be Gaia who is trying to get rid of us. No doubt we made her upset, we have gone too far – too deep with our tools, too high with our fumes, garbage and speculations. Transforming the landscape till we hit the autoimmune button when we are no longer welcome – our symbiotic contract has been violated. When I look at your landscape of the melting snow, I wonder how to explain to you what a nuclear meltdown is?
My eyes are burning, I forget to blink while looking at the screen, trying to zoom into your painting of that certain picnic. Now, gathering is banned, no matter if in nature or in clubs. Most of these places are closed down now anyway as some of the borders from time to time.
There is this cathedral next to us and also a park in front of our home. We moved here because we liked the neighborhood but since then we have never visited that cathedral, and the park became also just a passage. I guess we didn’t go there ‘cause it’s so close, and if you can reach something anytime it might lose its attraction? Now everybody’s craving for these parks and local churches, cheap flight tickets, expensive flight tickets, or just a disgusting pub, whatever.
I guess at the moment you’re a jet-setter compared to us...