040

Drawing (40) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"The painter, (P), with a brush for demonstration purposes in his hand and his model, (M), getting out of a VW Beetle at a time when that abbreviation hadn’t yet lost its civic charm and the word “Volkswagen” didn’t yet fill me with horror. Between the two of them lie veritable mountains of underwear neatly piled up and a road made of tea. The vision of a white glove was painted as a black after-image. Back then, that is, in 1974, we were convinced of the idea that a corny joke was able to represent the world and its relationships in the most reliable way. The Twilight of the Mockers only got going later, although I’d already turned down the offer of becoming editor of Pardon magazine in 1968 to study philosophy instead, which also initially led nowhere. Photographs were still raw sentences and ridiculous pieces of evidence. The language that photographic representations were capable of constructing only appeared to us as a possibility three years later, thanks to Alexander Rodchenko. But it was actually always crystal clear: I would never in my life buy a German car." (From: arsenal, january 19).

(1976) 

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