Philosophical sketches

“I remember making this one: I had a tutor at the Ateliers (Chris Dercon) who was always double with me: friendly to my face, but (as it later turned out) was requesting I be asked to leave for being ‘too messy’. Dercon always wore colorful scarves during our studio visits.” – SMW.

Rijksakademie Internal Open Studios – 07.09.20. “… De Ateliers as a boys club. I was gay but I had a penis so it didn’t matter. I lost contact with Carolee for a year, and I asked myself, what happened? All my feminist work was kind of tossed by them.” – SMW. “I was laughed away because I was a woman. The only way to survive is to become one of the boys […]. Feminist as a word, but a dirty word.” – Anon.

“This is a weird one because it’s about selling a work to the Stedelijk — ‘I’m Proud of Myself’, a piece of gay portraiture (such a strange phrase — what is gay portraiture?)” – SMW paraphrased by MH.

SMW & AC inventorying session – 03.09.20. “Dream a little dream of me is my Carolee song.” – SMW. SMW & AC inventorying session – 24.09.20. “I was distracted by the dream of…” – SMW. “The story?” – AC. “Sex.” – SMW.

“I was wanting to get seduced by the people working at the immigration office. Wanting to get seduced by anyone on the street. Wondering if I was seductive, seductive enough.” – SMW paraphrased by MH.

“I guess I was thinking of the most visceral phrasing I could imagine. Carolee was always so good at speaking about the body in visceral terms, like putting it into literal words.” – SMW paraphrased by MH.

“A response to the story of Schneemann’s removal from Reutgers faculty because, it was said, ‘she was a witch’.” – SMW paraphrased by MH.

“I’m quite gay, aren’t I? (not ‘queer’ — that almost too cool). The work, to me, looks quite gay 1990s — a kind of ‘colourful abjection’. A quite nice combination I think. I used to call myself a professional existentialist. I thought it was quite logical, and didn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing it around more often.” – SMW paraphrased by MH.

“Eyes windows to the soul // souls connected // the penises quite accurate in terms of scale.” – SMW.

“I even made a few sex tapes. Robin helped me set up the camera. I was a top. You see it from behind; he’s on a couch in front of me (slightly anonymous). It’s quite aesthetic.” – SMW paraphrased by MH.

“The phrase ‘it’s not what you think’ repeats often in my work.” – SMW.

SMW, MH & AC inventorying session – 01.10.20. “Referencing is there for a reason.” – AC. “You need to give credit where credit is due.” – SMW.