Fondation Giacometti

Le corbeau #2

De: Christian Alandete
Objet: [SUSPECTED SPAM:SPF=FAIL] Re: in advance of the start...
Date: 29 avril 2020 à 16:38:48 UTC+2
À: Douglas Gordon

Paris, Friday May 1, 2020

dear G.,

Do you mind if I’m using the letter G. to address you? This way you’ll never know if I’m addressing to Gordon or to Giacometti. ahah
On my way to your studio in Berlin a few weeks ago (or is it months now? I lost track of time with the locked down) I pass by this strip club « GG » and felt it would have been a nice place to hang out together with Giacometti in order to discuss about this exhibition we are working on for the Institute.

First you may have notice I’m not the kind of guy who can answer from tick to tock. I need to process over night and hopefully the morning after I will have an idea how to respond. I know this bother you when we speak over the phone and I'm hearing you are counting the second of silence I have to punctuate by saying "I’m still there thinking »... You said that you are the slower person possible but maybe not. Anyway isn't time to slow down? The funny thing about your message is that he went directly into my spam box... Is it because you mention prostitute? Ferocious sexual adventure? I don't think these words are considered appropriate now in a working environnement eheh but who cares? Maybe if this letter will have been send by regular mail I will have receive it on time.

When I was about to leave your apartment after about ten hours of records for the sake of a long interview for the catalogue (*hopefully you fed me also with amazing food you cooked) you said something that kept haunting me now: « Damned, we should have started this conversation two years ahead! » Now the exhibition that was supposed to open last week has been « delayed » for about one more year and it’s like something from the universe heard your pray.

Just before, I remembered I was mentioning that Jean Cocteau - about to print his diary « Opium » - added a footnote referring to Giacometti. I think footnotes are sometimes the most exciting part of a book. A detail the writer felt the urge to mention but can’t find room in his own text. Don’t you think it could be the best part of an exhibition? I believe this year to come will add a lot of footnotes to our project. Let see…

Going back to Cocteau the footnote says: * Je connais de Giacometti des sculptures si solides, si légères, qu’on dirait de la neige gardant les empreintes d’un oiseau. (I know of Giacometti sculptures so solid, so light, that it looks like snow with the imprints of a bird.) Regarding Giacometti, I do believe that poets have always been best to describe with words the feeling you can have when looking at some of his sculptures that leave you speechless.
Something I didn’t mention though that day is that, in his introduction, Cocteau added another note ** « Letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, complete edition », A letter Oscar Wilde wrote to another Douglas. Do you know who he is?

The weird think with letters by artists or writers is that at some point they will be disclosed. Are you conscious about that? Even the most personal letters might be peeled, commented, published. Every dirty secret could be used to explain, enlightened, justify some of your works. I told you that Annette destroyed a few letters after we worked together and digged into Giacometti personal letters from the Fondation Giacometti archive. She said that in public pointing at me. What were the content of those letter? Maybe we'll never know... She put guilt on me. Now I feel art historian are after me and expect me to be banned for being too close to living artists. I know you keep your secret in a safety box hidden in your studio. Please keep it at least as long as we are collaborating.

My dog is urging me to walk her out.

Kisses from Paris
Curator C.