Auctionary

 Life has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately. Not that much was happening, perhaps it is more the fact that not much is happening, the pandemic is still on, although numbers are going down right now, vaccination in Germany is a prime example of how-could-this-not-be-organized-better in this country of supposedly perfect organisation, and in a way everybody is going nuts. That includes me, probably some hormonal swings on the side... My God. Workouts in the open were rare because the weather was unfriendly. Very few moments in May looked like this.

Yesterday provided a pretty good harvest from my rhubarb plant, though, which is definitely a plus on the life side.

And my son and I went shopping to Munich this past week. We had recounted how house-bound he had been since he and I went to Berlin in the end of February 2020, he needed some clothes, infection numbers are going down so that some shops are open again, and both of us needed to get OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!!!!

I have rarely seen Marienplatz in Munich so empty...

We were successful in spending a good amount of money, as you can see in the number of bags and their fullness.

Of course I am trying to get enough studying in for my upcoming exams and yes, I will be VERY glad when this course is over and all I need to do is go to work and get on with my life! I am also trying to help my Senegalese friend with job applications, and perhaps that is stressing me more than my own situation. So I had got to the point where I thought, "well, this may be the first in many years in which I won't manage to get a piece for the Saqa Benefit Auction done". Because I thought deadline was June 1. But when I had sort of resigned myself to that, because I am also trying to draw lines of rejection when it is getting too much, I went to the website and checked - and lo and behold, it's the 30th. Well, I can do that. I have started, am on the facing now and will be done soon, a quick finish.

And then a mail came from Saqa, titled "Auctionaries", and at first I thought, what is that? But when I opened it I realized that it concerned me, too!

I am not sure how many years in a row I have entered and donated a piece for the Benefit Auction, but it must be over ten, because I think I remember that I saw a marker +10 or something like that next to my piece last year. And last year's sold for 750$. Admittedly, most others before sold much later in the auction, which means for a much lower price, none before had gone for more than 150, I think. Last year's was extremely powerful, I thought so myself, and yes, I am praising myself here.

"Love. Protect. Repeat." (text messages 22) 2020
12 x 12"

But I wasn't sure whether in total that would make it to over 2000? So after realizing that this mail concerned me, too, I clicked on the link, and there it is. A list with my name. I am an auctionary. Should I put that on my business cards now...?

Museum Shops

I like going to museums, and of course the art is the main focus of the visit. Especially in a museum as large and wonderful as the Kunstmuseum Basel, where I went earlier this month. But the end of the visit is not as pleasing if there isn’t a well equipped museum shop to stop in. An unsatisfying assortment of items on display might even spoil the visit. Not that I always buy something, indeed, frequently I pride myself in being able to go out again without having bought anything. Yet it is nice to see a good selection of art books, many of which one probably didn’t know existed.

The shop at the Kunstmusem Basel is very well equipped. Quite a trap. And no, I did not pride myself in walking out without having bought anything, on the contrary. I do not remember ever having spent so much money in a museum store as on that occasion. First of all, they have a huge selection of postcards, and although I do have quite a few at home and am constantly working on reducing this collection by actually writing and sending them to friends, I have not yet arrived at a moratorium? forbidding me to buy. Certainly not in a situation of “buy ten and get two for free”. Secondly, there is a huge selection of wonderful art books on display. And thirdly, some of them are offered at reduced price.

Amongst the latter was a volume with prints by Joseph Albers, a book edition  of his 1972 limited edition of prints “Formulation: Articulation”. 

 As I am currently working on my pieces for the exhibition “Inspiration Bauhaus” that two friends of mine and I will have in Octover 2014 in the Fagus Works in Alfeld, Germany, that felt like a piece I really needed to include in my collection. Probably also influenced by the experience I had had when going through the museum’s collection: in one room there was a relatively small “Homage to the square” with a title “The blue call”, which I had really impressed my when seen from the other end of the long room in which it was displayed on a wall where it could easily be overlooked when you first entered the room.

But the really expensive part of my purchase was this:

Front view of
"undiscovered minimalism
Gelims from Northern Iran" by Parviz Tanavoli
with contributions by Heinz Meyer  and
Werner Weber

I got attracted to its neighbor first – the catalogue of the exhibition on Moroccan carpets currently on show in Munich Pinakothek der Moderne), but because I am planning to go and see that later (perhaps even this week) I did not buy that one. After putting it down, my eyes got caught by the word ‘minimalism’, and after opening the book my guts had already decided that this was a ‘must have’. When I saw the price, mind started to argue with guts, but guts won, and credit card paid for it...

Just a couple of shots of pages in the book – you have to decide for yourself wheter it’s a must-have or not. 

These gelims are absolutely fabulous! For more information on the gelims you can click here.