After being at the launch / vernissage on Thursday I am both inspired and envious! Why? Because he gets on and does what he does, he makes it happen – if there is one thing that I never quite seem to have grasped it is how to make things happen. I do not mean the small things that I can alone can make happen, I mean the big things that I need help and support with – though while writing this I realise that perhaps even the small things are beyond me, or out of my reach. I simply do not know how to function in the professional art and museum worlds, and for this reason Benny and Patrik Steorn’s (short) presentation of the project and how they came to know each other was very interesting and inspiring. Their ‘getting to know each other’ took several years, and resulted in what I think Nicholas Logsdail (Lisson Gallery) referred to many years ago as a ‘professional friendship’. Sitting here now, it is interesting for me to recall how each of their accounts told of them each doing what they do – a curator curating, and an artist making art – and reaching a fantastically creative meeting place where their collaboration is evidenced in a wonderful new art work. The piece itself, an artistic audio-guide to several works in the museum’s collection, resonates with many discussions that Kim and I have had over the years.
Because of my own interest in Eugène Jansson, my looking at Neil Bartlett’s performance work, and even thinking about Michael Petry’s use of myth, I am beginning to wonder about the way in which gay male artists engage with history. I cannot quite put my finger on it (and perhaps that is not what I should be attempting to do) but there is a certain tone, attitude, language that exists in these works. It is something that I want to explore further and might well do as part of developing and extending Following Eugène.
