Kerry Morrison Drawing

While she was in Porto, Kerry Morrison drew most days.

Anniversaries

It’s been a busy year so far, so I haven’t got round to blogging much, but I do intend to mark some key anniversaries over this and the next couple of years. One I missed, which is entirely personal, comes from something I started doing in 1995. Whenever I’ve mentioned it, different people have said that they wished they had done it but if you didn’t do it, it’s too late now. Namely, 30 years ago I decided to record every book, film, exhibition, piece of music, performance or other artwork I experienced. I only realised when mentioning it to Helmut Lemke and Kerry Morrison who are currently visiting Porto that the continuous record has hit its anniversary. The system of noting my experiences was deliberately straightforward, simply the work, the venue/medium (if relevant) and if I thought it was good or meaningful/useful for me at the time I colour coded the entry in red. My only regret over the years was that I should have had a code for things I thought were bad, but once it was started, retrospectively changing past entries doesn’t seem in the spirit. I remember in the 2014 Text Festival I did an interview on Radio 3’s ‘The Word’ Programme, and having mentioned the record in conversation while the mikes were off, the producers insisted on me reading one of the year’s listings as a ‘performance’. I have no idea whether they broadcast it, probably not.

Anyway, two of my favourite artists, Helmut Lemke and Kerry Morrison, who are visiting us this week raised the question of whether I had thought about also recording who I was with when I had the experience. I didn’t but it was never meant to be a journal as such, just a list. Most often over the years it’s only use, apart from the act of recording itself, has been being able to look back to remind myself if I am rereading or rewatching something I’ve previously experienced but forgotten. However, since Helmut raised it this week with him and Kerry at the Serralves Museum, I saw exhibitions by Avery Singer, Mounira Al Solh, Francisco Tropa (which I also saw when Christian Bok visited) and various sculptures in the Serralves grounds, then we say the Sculpture Trail in Santo Tirso, a lovely walk but nothing stood out to mention in the works themselves. And a delightful photography project in Bolhao Market called Faith in Donkeys As a footnote, the very first entry in 1995 was The Graphic Language of Neville Brody.