compliment
Went to the open studio of the programme i used to run last night. Sat there and thought THANK FUCK I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT ANY MORE. It was great.
Anna C and I had a meeting to talk more about the future of our mutual project Disclosures. It hasn't been an easy path but now we seem to be coming to a point where there is still mileage in our ideas, and possibly even together. So we talked about the possibility of Disclosures '3'.
Now Disclosures appears to be the defining set of themes for my career, at least for now - crossing over activism, open source, the expanded field of socially engaged and collaborative contemporary art practice, and art world economics. She wants to take on some very local sociohistorical contexts, and I want to think about relating it to art's role in city marketing, and it all seems quite vague but positive.
At the end of the meeting she said she had missed that sort of conversation and reflection and I said yes, me too. I was pleased, because that sort of thing from Anna C never ever happens - she basically never gives compliments. But she said it again and looked a bit awkward and then she said yes, I never get this sort of conversation these days. And then she sort of gave me a funny look and said 'you know, you're really quite clever' and then made a silly face out of embarassment and ducked out of the office.
She's given me literally two compliments in the year that I have known her and both of them have been astonishing in their rarity. Basically her normal register of niceties ranges from 'fucking bitch' to 'off-hand/rude' through to 'not actively making you feel like shit'. She gets away with it by being extremely charismatic and extremely capable.
So I stood in the office thinking OH MUH FUH GUH Anna C just gave me a compliment!!!!
For the record, the only other compliments she's ever given me was 1) when she gave me a press release to look over and said 'you're a better writer than me anyway' and 2) a text message - which I have KEPT - when she said 'you're a good chair [of discussions]' after asking me how a talk had gone. That's it.
I am disproportionately amazed and pleased.
Anna C and I had a meeting to talk more about the future of our mutual project Disclosures. It hasn't been an easy path but now we seem to be coming to a point where there is still mileage in our ideas, and possibly even together. So we talked about the possibility of Disclosures '3'.
Now Disclosures appears to be the defining set of themes for my career, at least for now - crossing over activism, open source, the expanded field of socially engaged and collaborative contemporary art practice, and art world economics. She wants to take on some very local sociohistorical contexts, and I want to think about relating it to art's role in city marketing, and it all seems quite vague but positive.
At the end of the meeting she said she had missed that sort of conversation and reflection and I said yes, me too. I was pleased, because that sort of thing from Anna C never ever happens - she basically never gives compliments. But she said it again and looked a bit awkward and then she said yes, I never get this sort of conversation these days. And then she sort of gave me a funny look and said 'you know, you're really quite clever' and then made a silly face out of embarassment and ducked out of the office.
She's given me literally two compliments in the year that I have known her and both of them have been astonishing in their rarity. Basically her normal register of niceties ranges from 'fucking bitch' to 'off-hand/rude' through to 'not actively making you feel like shit'. She gets away with it by being extremely charismatic and extremely capable.
So I stood in the office thinking OH MUH FUH GUH Anna C just gave me a compliment!!!!
For the record, the only other compliments she's ever given me was 1) when she gave me a press release to look over and said 'you're a better writer than me anyway' and 2) a text message - which I have KEPT - when she said 'you're a good chair [of discussions]' after asking me how a talk had gone. That's it.
I am disproportionately amazed and pleased.