Or: Stasis caused by over-stimulation.

True, I’m not writing very often these days. But I have not stopped collecting art. No way, quite on the contrary. I’m still waiting for two packages from the USA containing the two works by Kozik I bought last week.

In two weeks I will move into a new flat, where my artworks will be installed for the first time in a proper way. I would like to move in right now. Some things you just have no control over. But there will be lots of photos to post. And you’re all invited to come by and have a look at my little collection. Make arrangements from October onwards …

Right now, there’s another weekend coming up and I experience a feeling of restlessness. It’s one of those moments when I feel overwhelmed by the overabundance of things I could do, books I could read, websites I could look at, artists I want to learn more about. It tends to paralyze me. I’m one of the people who prefer a restaurant menu with three choices to one with fifty. I have to learn how to filter. After all, this whole art-thing is new to me. Plus I tend to be lazy and not go out much.

Having said that: I’m actually in preparation mode for some art fairs. Frieze London, Art Forum Berlin and Art Basel Miami are events I will attend this year. So I will go out. If you have suggestions for an amateur collector on how to best muddle through … I’m all ears!

Or: I discovered another type of collector in me.

Up to now, I had a feeling of taking the business of collecting very serious. Which felt good and the right thing to do. I spoke to established gallerists, established collectors and mostly about established artists.

However, the online exhibitions at Independent Collectors and viewing what great extensions and items some collectors buy to create their collection encouraged me to go a little more adventurous myself.

- Insert a few moments of browsing my favourite weblogs -

Suddenly, at joshspear.com (link), I come by an older post about a guy I used to adore when I was a teenager. I’m talking about Frank Kozik (link), creator of concert posters, album covers and other graphic art. My record collection contains quite a batch of the stuff he did for his now long gone label Man’s Ruin (link). I bought some albums he created the artwork for, even if I didn’t like the music.

Now I see this online store where you can get signed Kozik items reasonably priced (link). The guy just has no respect … in a positive way. (Plus he looks a bit like Philip K. Dick.) At first sight the stuff doesn’t compare with the items I occupied my time with recently. But it actually corresponds with some in a nice way.

I spontaneously ordered a print (“Adolf”) and a small original artwork (“I’m only here for the beer!”):

It feels as if I suddenly discovered a separate collector’s identity within me, one that is more punk, maybe, but definitely less serious. It’s an interesting experience to witness how my collection habits start to reflect different aspects of my personality. What other personality-traits will I come across? I wonder …

In just a few weeks time I will place two artworks on a wall in my apartment. Left, there will be Jonathan Monk’s “Endless search for perfection” and to the right of it Frank Kozik’s “I’m only here for the beer!” Everything will be in balance then.

Or: The robust canvas.

That’s it. I’m back from Burning Man. Actually, I came back yesterday, Wednesday. But the jet lag (and probably the three Rusty Nails in a Reno bar the night before) made me somewhat sleepy and so I spent the most of the time since then in bed …

I had taken with me a patina painting by Karin Sander. And I’m told that Austria is waiting to see the results. So let me just briefly explain what happened. I had the canvas in a sealed envelope which I opened the second the wheels hit the desert, or the “playa”, as the Burners call it. In order to be able to carry the painting with me at all times, I attached two Tesa Powerstrips to the back of it and carried it around my neck on to lanyards. Hurray for Tesa Powerstrips: Dust storms, port-a-potties, flame-throwers, art cars, hiking the desert …

On the left you can see the patina painting attached to a box of rebar while we set up the art project “Gort” by Stefan Werner and Uli Klumpp (an array of six giant theremins). We had 8 hours or something of dust storm that felt like sand-blast peeling. On the right you can see the painting in front of the Basura Sagrada. A huge structure made from scrap wood where the Burners leave messages, place ashes of their deceased or things they are sorry for. The temple is burnt on the last night every year.

Naturally, I didn’t want to wear the artwork at all times, which is why I sometimes attached it to a structure. On the left, it is hanging on the shade structure in our camp. On the right side, I took it to the top of a 10-story steel structure called Babylon, where I went for breakfast one morning.

Here is a glimpse of the environment the patina painting was created in. Well, the desert. I had to tell maybe 50 people what is up what that painting and one woman was like “Oh, Karin Sander!”. And a lot of people made jokes about pouring their beer over it but actually all of them were too shy to even touch it.

And after seven and a half days in the desert, running half naked after the water truck (yes me, with the painting, no pictures) and being rained on by alcohol (after being highly compressed, coloured and exploded in mid air, the unburned drops falling back down on the audience), this is what the painting looks like now: