Ten years ago today I made a fateful train-trip from Cologne to Frankfurt to visit a gallery (LA Galerie) there. As you can imagine, at 26 and still dreaming of grandeur, I put a lot of emotional energy into the trip and held great hopes for ... well ... greatness.
I was bitterly disappointed with the experience which I found a bit confrontational. Let's just say it didn't go well and I came away from it completely confused, frustrated and frankly depressed.
I drifted around that afternoon shooting images of stickers on trash cans and the dog shit in the streets ... seemed apt at the time.
From that moment, my work drifted away from the post-modern - in the gallerist words: 'cold' - fumblings that I'd been playing with for a few years and I finally 'got over it'.
If anything it turned me on to something more satisfying and ultimately I'm grateful that the gallerist was so 'this is how it is'. I doubt that he'd like my work now either but that's beside the point.
In tribute to this pivotal moment, here the voicemail I left immediately after the meeting. It was recorded on an old cassette tape that must have been quite thin. As such, you can hear the music on the other side of the strip.
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