letter from Gerard Kodde

Dear Justin,

I can’t remember receiving a reply on my documentation that is as extensive as the one you’ve sent me. Thankyou so much once again. You’ve really done a lot of writing and thinking on my work and you’ve come to a point that asks for more thinking. From my side, only short answers have come so far, even though you’ve offered me a large amount of material in images and text on cd-r. Your documentation is on my hard disk now. I have a look at it every now and then when it comes into my mind. That’s how I work towards a response. Indeed, as you’re saying, writing in sections is a good help.

Looking at your work, speaking of the sculptural pieces, I can’t ignore the words I remember you saying in Bonn, that you love cutting through the material. The results of this cutting are sharp edged scraps, being so crisp it brings in mind the thought of an unknown, new typography. The viewer is reading ´words` which are cut outs from the material they are referring to and by result there’s almost no distance between what these words say and their origin. The two-dimensional work is strongly related to what is made visible in the sculptural works. Again I’m thinking of a kind of writing. The word as a new appearance after material breaks out from being locked up in itself, flocking with other words and finding a position in space were they do exist for a while as a cloud, a body, a structure that surrounds us.

Going through your documentation, it is a surprise to arrive at the part showing works that are partly build up with wrapping material, carrying graphic prints. Printed words of the real world, cut into pieces and spread out in space to be language again. I imagine you working, destroying those printed words, whatever they may have said, submitting them to a different appearance. Although the shredding of the existing world into a million pieces could easily provide an expression of violence, it is completely clear Justin how carefully you operate in this working process. No doubt you’ll have the help of tools and some skills of craftsmanship, but in a strange contradiction you actually seem to be a bystander also, observing and analyzing a crystallizing process that’s bringing forth a newly defined environment, which offers a physical space (and therefore a mental space) to those who are curious to find shelter in it.

The spectator, me beside others, is not pushed to step into the spaces created here. Together with you, one is permitted to be a bystander. Or by-passer, like a truck driver who’s noticing your work on the facade of a building, perhaps picking up it’s positive energy, and continuing his own way. That’s what I really do appreciate here, namely that it is left completely open as to ones extent of involvement - either just ending at the surface of the shiny elements, or walking deeper into those structures. As an artist you are working on a high level, and you’ve found a very consistent path to walk along. There is, as I see it, a great potential for coming developments and I´m wondering which objects will be worth next putting in ´the shredder machine´.

Saying your work reminds me of linguistics has maybe a connection to your background in philosophy, a part of your past I read about in your c.v. It is perhaps an explanation of the clarity in your description of my activities in painting. It’s true I’ve done a lot of thinking on the matter, although I have tried to ‘ignore’ painting. I’m recognizing it is tricky to have a goal on painting itself, instead of using painting as one possible medium between others. For me architecture or photography for instance would be alright also. The thing is, I like the medium of painting for conveying new ways of thinking, because a canvas is almost as easy to handle as a piece of paper. Reality is always the same, the mind has a need for change. The canvas is giving way to this.

Our practices basically start with concept and opinion, making and renewing opinion, otherwise there would be little reason to give the work a place in the public domain. It is my turn to apologize, knowing my words do not reach quite far and they also carry a risk of being misunderstood because of the language difficulty. I hope you will find some good thoughts to share, though. Sorry I haven’t made it yet to start answering your final question, but a next opportunity might come?

For now all the best, with my kind regards,
Gerard

Berlin, 15 February 2008