maandag 24 januari 2022

Anniverse l'Art

 

It's Art's Birthday and I'm on the train to Antwerp
Even though there is no party tonight, we celebrate the falling of a dry sponge into the prehistoric bucket of water some 100 000  and fourty five or so years ago... Remembering too when it was noy yet again such a fad, in between fads as it were, when Dennis Anderson scheduled a AB part at his gallery around the corner, to which I was not specifically invited and which at the time I consdered a ruse of sorts, not really being a party but a staged so'ething or other... Set- piece theatre or installation, performance, happening ( to use a good ol term).. My reticence at the time might have been the basis for a refusal after being asked to host a AB meeting at the Factor 44 years later, proposed by a radio-artist and related to the ERU network of sound pieces, live, international... He was also the brother of one of my colleagues... Afterwards I was somewhet sad we didn't do it after all... But then in hindsight perhaps not...
Because,
Maybe it was due to that refusal that we didn't have to organize a party every year on the 17th, and, given the fact that they found a venue at the Museum, made it possible to be a yearly bash with all kinds of participants far more elaborate than what we might have been able to do...
(they messed up Ghent quite a bit by imposing modern buildings onto the station area, making for a heady mismatch which will wear off soon and become just plain ugly...)

 
 
 And
After visiting quite a few of these Art's Birthdays since, I can only say a fe of them seemed worthwhile and in the spirit of Filliou, the others being more of a showcase for young talent type of thing, which is not a problem, but I would have liked more 'cucumbrland' attitudes... And in the end with lockdown and masks and passes and all that it no longer seemed viable... Hence this discreet monday-version...
So
This is a sort of birthday outing, and reverie, dérive, whatever one might consider this small corner of the genial republic to be, etrnally, internally and externally... By way of homage I am considering not getting off at Berchem but to continue to the central station to see on the wall a pram, but also in consideration of the desription given by W.G. seebald in his book 'Austerliz'... Which so it seems is subject to a new dance-theatre production opening soon...
We shall see.
(here my old haunt from library-school days... dampoort)
I should take Seebald to hand again, it trailed off after the period of renovations-reading back in 2009, why I don't quite know... Something came up, and I put it aside with the notion to continue, but then didn't... Still the book never made it back to the shelf, and has been waiting on the 'to do' pile ever since... This is the fitting opportunity, it seems to me...
(see if we pass the small towers, maybe this train goes into the tunnel too ...)

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