A laboratory of sorts.

André Breton in his studio, c. 1939.

The past couple of weeks had me split my time between writing at home and working in an office. The latter is part of a very open, friendly and creative institution, a place that does not confirm clichés often associated with an office - such as routine, boredom, bullying, regulations or gossip.

Still, it makes me appreciate days spent in the house writing much more than before. To describe it, I would borrow photographer and filmmaker Perry Ogden’s words, who characterises his idea of an artist’s studio in the following terms:

What is the studio? Where is the studio? Ideas can come at any time, any place - and at the slightest suggestion. For me the studio is where these ideas take shape. A laboratory of sorts. A space in which to research and experiment. To read, to sleep, to love, to listen. To dream. Music. Chaos. Uncertainty. Silence. A place to be alone - and not alone. I’m still looking.

Shouldn’t the world be more like this studio? Shouldn’t offices be more like this studio? Places to research and experiment? To read, to sleep, to love, to listen? To dream?

Music. Chaos. Uncertainty. Silence.

Places to be alone - but for the most part not alone.

Quote from Jens Hoffmann and Christina Kennedy (eds), The Studio (catalogue to an exhibition at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane).

Every Little Thing

Every Little Thing,
shop on Princess Road, Moss Side, Manchester, England.

I couldn’t tell you if Every Little Thing carries every little thing or even a bit of everything for that matter - the shutter remains closed, no one has ever been witnessed venturing inside. There’s a whiff of mystery about it that is rare in this part of the city and that won’t go away…

A Bit of Everything

Obscura Antiquites & Oddities storefront, New York City.

We started by placing in the centre of the window a piece of basalt, fairly big but not too unwieldy, well brushed and laid delicately on a bed of cotton like some every fragile object. On the right and on the left, imitation crystal goblets held white and yellow sea sand and common calcareous sand… A variety of leaves - beech, locust, oak - were pasted on a sheet of black cardboard at the back of the display. Each leaf was identified by its origin, from the soft green of May to the golden yellow of October… One page, dog-eared, numbered 165, from one of the least engaging novels by M. Pierre Benoît, a member of the French Academy, was displayed in a frame under glass…

Hungarian novelist Alexandre Maraï’s idea for a store called A Bit of Everything, published in the French magazine Lu, August 1935.

In the laboratory of doubt.

Carsten Höller, Key to the Laboratory of Doubt, 2006.

Doubt and its semantic cousin, perplexity, which are both equally important to me, are considered unattractive states of mind we’d rather keep under lock and key because we associate them with uneasiness, with a failure of values. But wouldn’t it be more appropriate to claim the opposite - that certainty in the sense of a brazen, untenable assumption is much more pathetic?

Carsten Höller in a conversation with Hans-Ulrich Obrist, quoted in Say It Isn’t So.

Listmania.

I’d certainly have chosen different words than Christopher Foyle did for his Treasury of Unusual Words (beautiful-looking book and fantastic birthday present from M. and J.) - as anyone of us would have. But I’d definitely have included the following too,

for their meaning

to moodle - to pass time in doing nothing, to meander aimlessly

thigmophilic - touch-loving, liking or needing to be touched or to feel the touch of something

blennophobia - an abnormal fear of slime or mucous

colombophile - a pigeon-fancier

for their onomatopoetic quality

susurration - a whispering, rustling or murmuring sound

curmudgeon - a bad-tempered, mean-spirited or miserly person

to murken - to darken, to grow dark, to become overcast; to make dark, to obscure

rambunctious - exuberant, boisterous, difficult to control

and for its straightforwardness

to unnun - to expel a nun from the religious order to which she belongs.