Looking back on past loves things get mixed up, colours dull, small details get irreversibly lost. Memory stutters. A dream falling apart into mismatched fragments, like limbs, torn and flung upon the battlefield. There is glory in battle — but where is glory in that?
How we argued; teeth and nail, cruel and bitter. You would be methodical and remorse- less — I would sneak and lie and manipulate. Intoxicated by our mutual hostility, we would circle around each other, calculating blame, sharpening tongues, waiting for a weakness to show itself.
It wasn’t always like that of course. I remember the first time I saw you: such beautiful eyes, I thought — I could wear them. They had such a clear, glassy quality; laughing, yet so perfectly cold. A warning?
A warning against this complete mutual intoxication, against the desire to possess each other whole, from a polished fingernail to a chipped tooth. I think we knew we would bring each other to the breaking point, with our worst extremes laid bare and ugly… But I digress.
What I want to say that to this day I am struggling to see you in your entirety. A lock of hair; a string of beads; a collarbone, like a proud bird. Trinkets and mementoes, surely, but their materiality challenges my memory of you, and isn’t it why we keep things? To remember? Dried flowers — do people still keep those?
Still, I keep your things, your stupid things I did not have the heart to bury with you that night. That night I dragged you, limp and heavy, your lifeless shoes leaving tell-tale groves in soft summer earth. I pushed and pulled and smeared dirt and my tears all over — pathetic, really, with my black rubbish bags and a plastic garden shovel.
Your things, I got a drawer full of them. Objects experience time differently — cushioned in their slumber, they just let the years ebb at them, never frantic, never afraid. Dust settles on them like a king’s mantle. But the drawer rattles and creaks; won’t close properly — I should fix it, really, but you know how these things are. I ignore it, but it pains me. I would never want to disturb your delicious dreaming.
Imprint
| Artist | Titania Seidl, Jakob Kolb, Šárka Koudelová |
| Exhibition | Your delicious dreaming |
| Place / venue | Goldschlag 70, Vienna |
| Dates | November 9 – December 20, 2019 |
| Curated by | Nika Kupyrova |
| Photos | Rudolf Strobl and Nika Kupyrova |
| Website | www.goldschlag70.com |
| Index | Goldschlag 70 Jakob Kolb Nika Kupyrova Šárka Koudelová Titania Seidl |