returnal

i was in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. i forget the name of the artist and the work. sorry. i’ll call it: returnal

i think what drives me is some allusive quality of getting something right, whatever that means

and you never quite get it right

so you keep going and you keep going

- John Baldessari

after burning his art, Baldessari made some cookies out of the ashes.

seems reasonable!

‘only one person that i knew ever ate one.’

that also seems reasonable.

then, an interesting slip of his tongue:

‘the idea that there would be some sort of returnal, the thing that comes out of the earth, the painting, gets burned, goes back to the earth by shitting it out, and the painting then only becomes one point of the circle. i, i was truly sick :) !’

RETURNAL!

that’s great. In this way ‘return’ is also part of the eternal, the everlasting and neverending circle of being, understanding that return is not the end, just one part of it all, just like art.*

.no beginning

no ending.

everything part of everything

(*also: i’ve never realized up until now that ‘urn’ is in return. so ‘returnal’ is also urnal. ha. )

what to do?

how to begin?

‘you just gotta get to your studio every day, and do nothing but sweep up, and eventually you’ll get bored, and and you’ll try not to be bored and then that’s the beginning of creativity’

more baldessari please.

here it is.

great video!

i will not make any more boring art.

i will fail.

i will try.

time to start sweeping.

returnal

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