Few are made for independence – it is a privilege of the strong. And he who attempts it, having the completest right to it but without being compelled to, thereby proves that he is probably not only strong but also daring to the point of recklessness.
The free spirit, Beyond Good and Evil. Friedrich Nietzsche.
When i woke up in the morning I felt strangely depressed, a feeling i could not shake off for the better part of the day. All of a sudden it seemed to me as though I, the solitary one, had been forsaken by the whole world, and that the whole world would have nothing to do with me. You may ask who “the whole world” is. For, I am afraid, I have not been lucky in acquiring a single acquaintance in Petersburg during the eight years i have been living there. But what do I want acquaintances for? I know the whole of petersburg without them, and that, indeed, was the reason why it seemed to me that the whole world had forsaken me when the whole town suddenly arose and left for the country.
White Nights, Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The faster the airplane flies, the less important are France, Spain, and Italy. They were nations, now they are provinces, and tomorrow they will be the world’s villages. The future is not ours, and there’s nothing we can do against this irresistible movement. Germany lost the war because it was a nation and modern warfare requires the means of empires. Tomorrow the means of entire continents will be necessary.
American Journals, Albert Camus.
The good thing about Evelyn – and she has her good side, although she is most careful to hide it from strangers – is that she has absolutely no sense of humour. Which is very useful since it means you never have to waste your time trying to cheer her up. Because she’s permanently unhappy. Misery is her natural state. We are also fortunate in being blessed with a very miserable boy. In fact, apart from me, we are the most miserable family you are ever likely to meet and I’m working on me.
Absent Friends, Alan Ayckbourn
The only courage, with rare exceptions, that we have been witness to, has been the isolated courage of isolated people.
The white negro, Norman Mailer.
The primitive begins alone; he inherits no practice. Because of this the term primitive may appear at first to be justified. He does not use the pictorical grammar of the tradition – hence he is ungrammatical. He has not learnt the technical skills which have evolved with this conventions – hence he is clumsy. When he discovers on his own a solution to a pictorial problem, he often uses it many times – hence he is naïve. But then one has to ask: why does he refuse the tradition? And the answer is only partly that he was born far away from that tradition. The effort necessary to begin painting or sculpting, in the social context in which he finds himself, is so great that it could well include visiting the museums. But it never does, at least at the beginning. Why? Because he knows already that his own lived experience which is forcing him to make art has no place in that tradition. How does he know this without having visited the museums? He knows it because his whole experience is one of being excluded from the exercise of power in his society, and he realises from the compulsion he now feels that art too has a kind of power. the will of primitives derives from faith in their own experience and a profound scepticism about society as they have found it.
The Primitive and the Professional, John Berger.
Este libro al que le puse el nombre de E.G.S. El Decameron, lo encontré botado en la calle a mediados del año 1998, en el barrio Patronato, sector coreano de Santiago y cercano a la casa donde vivía en ese periodo y casualmente tiempo en el cual comenzaba a realizar mis primeras pinturas en la calle.
Unos meses después de encontrarlo y sin saber que libro era el Decameron (tiene el nombre escrito, no en coreano, en el lomo) comencé a pintar sus delgadas y numerosas paginas, algunos meses mi interés en el pintado de este libro era intenso y en otros el libro permanecia cerrado por largo tiempo.
Viaje con este libro a todas partes y a mediados del año 2000 decidí coser por los bordes gran parte de las paginas que ya había pintado en un intento de esconder su contenido aun que fuese de manera parcial, de vez en cuando mostraba este libro a mis amigos y a personas que poco a poco aparecían y mostraban interés por mi pintura.
Nunca pensé en terminar este libro y avanzar en sus paginas no era mi preocupación por lo que constantemente volvía atrás y retocaba antiguas pinturas, pegaba recortes y dibujos que me parecían pertinentes y reforzaba el lomo del libro que poco a poco comenzaba a ceder.
Algunos meses antes de terminar este libro, he impulsado por la invitacion a participar de una interesante muestra, grabamos este vídeo que fue incluido en la exposición “Less is more”, en la Galería Patricia Ready en Diciembre del 2010.
La curatoria de esta muestra estuvo a cargo de Superespacio y contó con la participacion de Manuel Peralta y Sebastian Preece, además de mi participacion a través de este vídeo.
Durante los primeros meses del año 2011, y ya habiendo pintado la ultima pagina decidí darlo por concluido, de ves en cuando siento ganas de meterle mano nuevamente y de retocar alguna pagina pero por alguna razón siento que esto seria incorrecto, muchas cosas han cambiado desde que cerré este libro que nunca pretendí terminar, entre estas mi relación con mis pinturas en la calle.
Quizás este libro tenia una relación mas que casual con ciertas cosas, quizás atribuirle relaciones irracionales a este libro es inevitable, lo único que se es que lo extraño, extraño zurcir sus bordes y modificar su contenido.
