The Grey Paintings, For Example, A Painted

In The Beginning I Tried To Accommodate Everything There That Was Somewhere Between Art And Garbage And That Somehow Seemed Important To Me And A Pity To Throw Away. After A While, Some Sheets In The Atlas Acquired Another Value, After All - That Is, It Seemed To Me That They Could Stand On Their Own Terms, Not Only Under The Protection Of The Atlas.

Painting Pictures Is Simply The Official, The Daily Work, The Profession, And In The Case Of The Watercolours I Can Sooner Afford To Follow My Mood, My Spirits.

I Don't Believe In The Reality Of Painting, So I Use Different Styles Like Clothes: It's A Way To Disguise Myself.

I Wanted To Say Something Different: The Pictures Are Also A Leave-taking, In Several Respects. Factually: These Specific Persons Are Dead; As A General Statement, Death Is Leave-taking. And Then Ideologically: A Leave-taking From A Specific Doctrine Of Salvation And, Beyond That, From The Illusion That Unacceptable Circumstances Of Life Can Be Changed By This Conventional Expedient Of Violent Struggle.

Of Course I Constantly Despair At My Own Incapacity, At The Impossibility Of Ever Accomplishing Anything, Of Painting A Valid, True Picture Or Even Knowing What Such A Thing Ought To Look Like. But Then I Always Have The Hope That, If I Persevere, It Might One Day Happen. And This Hope Is Nurtured Every Time Something Appears, A Scattered, Partial, Initial Hint Of Something Which Reminds Me Of What I Long For, Or Which Conveys A Hint Of It – Although Often Enough I Have Been Fooled By A Momentary Glimpse That Then Vanishes, Leaving Behind Only The Usual Thing.