Last week I presented Bas Hendrikx' Award winning candy distributor "Candybars", today I'm honored to introduce the second first winner of this year's 19,99 € Award, Malgorzata Szandala, and her piece "Nearly Impossible". The thing with having two first winners is that there's a strong tendency to refer to a first first winner and second first winner. Is Bas Hendrikx the better first winner because I presented him first? (Am I a chauvinist for treating gentlemen before ladies? Or a feminist (with a sweet tooth for Marilyn Frye) for the same matter?) Or is Bas Hendrikx the less valuable first winner because I spent less words on his presentation? Then again, why do I mention his name so often? It's a damn cool name, that's for sure, but so is Malgorzata Szandala, Malgorzata Szandala, Malgorzata Szandala. I just love the beauty of echolalia. However, I really couldn't care less and I'm mostly asking myself why I'm asking myself all these damn questions. Despite the fact that there were moments in my life when my psychological constitution was to be considered more sane than it is these days, I'm rhetorically prancing through these questions because there is indeed a reason why I presented Bas first and Malgorzata second.
For weeks now I've been going through all the letters our jury members exchanged in the process of finding a decision. While reconstructing the spirit of decision making within the art industry, I discovered that our jury didn't exactly fall in love with Malgorzata's piece at first glance or as Gusti Gould Korban so felicitously verbalized: "It grows on you." Here we see "Nearly Impossible":
And here are a few things our jury members pointed out in the course of their "postmodern" discourse:
Cornelia Huth: "I like this one. A short message made of stones (that's what I see) thrown intentionally on the ground to make it look like the complete opposite, just fallen there, saying "nearly impossible", sounds like a funny parody to me. The blurry symbolic language puts it in-between: high and low quality, streetart and land-art, serious and ridiculous. As Lasse said before, I do like reading short messages everywhere as well and finding this while wandering around would make my day. Moreover, I somehow experience a zeitgeist feeling here. The phenomenon of transporting messages, expressing feelings, staying in contact, making arrangements these days. Everything you have say to your friends / family / lover / world is in 120 letters. Starting with text messages and facebook. I can’t even remember reading a letter on real paper. Like the title says: (For me) it is nearly immpossible to explain things in this form, but that's what we do all day. Funny too. I just like the twists this piece is able to transport."
Gusti Gould Korban: "I can hear the crunching sound that walking on such gravel makes, something which always makes up for its ugliness and here the touch of green does the same. The message is a pleasant surprise that subtly humanizes the barrenness. The idea is a clever one that works. It brings an immediate smile to the observer who then is able to easily make a myriad of associations both aesthetic and philosophical. And it grows on you. The combination of inanimate rubble, green life and the unexpected words of man, barely visible at first glance, makes for intelligent whimsy. I wish I were able to join you all for a drink..."
Lasse Lawrence: "Even if I don't really get the topic of this piece, I like the idea of walking down some random dirty rocky path in a nature park or something, finding such an unexpected mysterious message on my way, it reminds me of Cosmos, a book by Gombrowitz, where the walkers find a bird hanged on a branch in their way to a refuge, and start their investigation from this point - and start to see signs in the smallest elements of the surrounding environment, leading them to some unlikely speculations."
Lasse Lawrence: "Even if I don't really get the topic of this piece, I like the idea of walking down some random dirty rocky path in a nature park or something, finding such an unexpected mysterious message on my way, it reminds me of Cosmos, a book by Gombrowitz, where the walkers find a bird hanged on a branch in their way to a refuge, and start their investigation from this point - and start to see signs in the smallest elements of the surrounding environment, leading them to some unlikely speculations."
And here you see a picture of Malgorzata, Bas didn't send me one, but I'm sure he's also pretty:
