September 10th 2023
Lenin
In the building where I live and there is also a museum dedicated to my glorious life, and exile, an Ukrainian flag has appeared today. I cannot really understand whether it has been intentional or not, but in the continuous discussion born after the beginning of the current war, someone blamed me for having created the Ukrainian nation. I do not have the slightest idea about this fact, perhaps I have just forgotten as so many others related to my personal history. During the last twenty years a new generation of absolute rulers have emerged in this world and the exact reminiscence of my achievements is fading away. That is perhaps what is causing my more and more frequent loss of memory. People like me need to be venerated as a demigod to understand his role in this universe. Without an adoring mob, we are nothing. It would be enough to switch off the radio, the television, not to read the newspapers anymore and sometimes even not to attend the Sunday service, to let us disappear. I am disappearing and, instead of a mummy, getting a ghost of myself. I am not able to enjoy anything else than a delicious ice cream on an omelet aux cepes. That Ukrainian flag, on the contrary, so provoking, hanging on the plaque remembering the dates of my exile, is providing my body with new life, with the ancient greed of power that made me strong.
The art dealer
It is relaxing to have a view on the British countryside, here in Northern Ireland. I went back last week, for a visit to my family and my childhood friends. All of them are loyal to our good King Charles. With all the chaos ongoing and the attention of the press for the war in Ukraine, Ulster seems a quiet place. The time of the troubles is getting easily forgotten, when the BBC continuously points out the evil and the intrigues of the Russian court and the divide is between an old white man enjoying his days and a quarrelling queer minority. I actually wish I were in New York during these days, not to miss the Ed Rusha’s exhibition. I am also regretting not having invested my money in his paintings and works. They are quite expensive, but their value can only increase. That is the power of the words once transmuted into image. Yet, if any other artist would put together some letters on a piece of paper, he will not obtain the same result. If not perhaps Baldessari, who can also nicely joke with other shapes and colours. Less renowned, perhaps just to me, is Marcel Broodthaers. A Belgian who even managed to question, in a succinct and effective way, the relationship between the recognition of art, museums and the market. I invest for money, indeed.
The consultant
I did not have to wait too long to get assigned to another project. To have been blamed by the green.red-left whatever component of the city hall, has improved my acceptance by my bosses. For some reason they believed I was a feminist or an activist as well. Perhaps because I am a woman. If discrimination belongs to the past, contemporary leftist ideology obtains the only result to produce a huge wall between the categories they assume to patronise. I have really got enough of such an atmosphere, that does not allow me to work proficiently with a good part of my colleagues. The new course could bring me some advantages because I really want to show all my best skills in a challenging task. If I had to compare my life with that of a common man, working behind a laptop, following the same process for his whole life, then I could consider myself lucky and my life interesting. However, if I look at the existence of an artist, a writer, an art dealer, or a politician, perhaps an extremist one, well renowned for his idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, then my profile would just be a boring one. As much as my apartment, adorned Ikea furniture and a couple of cheap paintings bought at the fair of affordable art, in London St Pancras or some other Railways Station.
