Before I went to Florida, Jørgen gave me this book which he thought I might find interesting, "since I am interested in the Manhattan Project". The book was a hardcover of What Do You Care What Other People Think, by Richard Feynman. (I did not know that I was interested in the Manhattan Project, but there was a book on my wish list, so Jørgen got me something he liked) The picture on the cover looked familiar. It was the picture of Feynman taken by Faustin Bray and it looked familiar because it had been used in the Apple Think Different campaign. (I have also seen it over somebody¹s desk at the office.) Hmm. So this smart guy, who¹s girlfriend will go for her PhD in Physics gives me a book written by a guy who got a Nobel Prize in Physics. Apple wants us to think different, he does not care what other people think (including probably me)... to put it short, a red flag went up. I was ready to give up after the 3rd page maybe and to return the book to Jørgen after my return from Florida. I wanted to have something relaxing and entertaining to read in Miami though, so I picked a little book out of my private library: Jeff WallŒs "Szenarien im Bildraum der Wirklichkeit", a cute little book, a collection of Essays and Interviews with Jeff Wall, one of the great photographers of our time, famous and loved for his work since the late 70¹s. He is the one who creates these huge boxes with cinematically arranged scenes. Really excellent work. Stunning. I have seen his work in so many places, even saw the retrospective at the Hirshhorn in Washington 1997, so I was looking forward to a happy, maybe even humorous intellectual read. I have no link for the Wall book. I can not find it anywhere. It must be out of print. Sorry.
You can probably guess by now what really happened. The Feynman book was pure joy and inspiration. Reminded me of my father, my childhood in Poland, made me feel warm and happy. A wonderful, touching book, down to earth. Written with the intention to be understood. A real guy writing about reality. Some passages felt as if they were written by a 17 year old. A 17 year old who has worked on the Manhattan Project and who got a Nobel Prize. Funny. Intelligent. Down to earth.
The second part of the book gives the reader a peak behind the scenes of the Space Shuttle Challenger hearings. Feynman, again describes this adventure with such freshness... pure joy.
So I read the book in a day. Maybe two. I am not the fastest reader. (I write even slower, so I hope you enjoy all this here.)
I can highly recommend the book, I have added more Feynman to my wish list on Amazon, which I use as a recommendation list, I am not really expecting anybody to buy me anything. (I am, most of the time, my own Santa Claus.)
Let¹s take a look at the Jeff Wall book. The book is a translation into German. I usually do not like reading translated content, and I try to avoid translations as much as I can. I do not speak many Languages fluently but enough to be selective. German texts tend to turn into incomprehensible monsters when translated into, let¹s say English. English texts can either become very complex, or quite simplistic, dependent on how deep the translator really decides to go.
I speak German a bit better than English still, I have lived in Germany for the longest part of my life.
Reading Jeff Wall hurts. It is not the most pleasant process. Maybe it is the translation, maybe it is the Florida sun. Reading about Jeff Wall feels more complex than the large slides and reading his Essays is just a quite complex experience. Jeff Wall is an Art Historian. (He really is an Art Historian) Writing seems to be his primary Language, (which is surprising, looking at his photographic work). Certain stylistic elements in his writing seem to come from Marx. Marx is famous for having a horrible style. Jeff Wall writes well and in complex ways, he is a good writer, it is just that certain things said, might just be better expressed by a picture than by a thousand words. It might be the fault of the translation, even though the translation is said to be excellent and in certain passages even closer to the original Wall than the same text published in English (Wall gave translators his original manuscripts which were not available to the English editors). I would love to have a relaxed conversation with Jeff Wall, maybe even over a glass of wine. He must be quite nice. His work is brilliant, he is from Canada. He really must be a good person to have a relaxed conversation with.
The trap I fell into is that what I was fearing might happen with Richard Feynman, happened with Jeff Wall. Feynman¹s book was written for anybody, the bystander, somebody who would like to be taken onto an adventure. The Wall book was written for Art Historians. Experts.
It takes a bit longer to digest, to untangle the content, to look at what is really there and then to decide if the content really makes sense, and if what one sees here is really something that could only be said this way, or in many other, simpler ways.
Jeff Wall inspires as he admits that artist should not defend the art they make but create a body of written work around it, that works as nourishment to those who want to write about the art. It is one thing to break the rules and create rebellious art. It is a much more elegant approach to write new rules and then to show that the art created fits into this new, intellectual world.
I will need to write more about it. This whole experience will need some more and more serious commentary. I actually thought about a German Blog, since certain things can be said so much better in the Sprache der Dichter und Denker.
Not now. Tomorrow. I will need to come back to some aspects of Wall¹s book. (I will also need to read most of it... again... And again)
Some categories established by Wall were just so obviously set there to suit his own work. Oh well. Not now.
Thank you for the book Jørgen. Thank you for some serious work Jeff Wall.
We will need to come back to all this. For now, good night.