Robert Collén sent me a collection of my postcards in response to the invitation to my postcard collectors of December 4, 1999. Since 1998, when we began exchanging cards, each of us has sent and received hundreds of them, and he had plenty to choose from. I send him practically everything I write, and he probably does the same. In a piece of his own written on January 4, 2000, pasted on a postcard, and posted the same day, he explains that he could not bring himself to send me less than seventeen of my own. “Although I selected each postcard for its intrinsic interest,” he writes, “I thought, as I read them together, the group forms a portrait (certainly not definitive) of you and your family.” The portrait is fascinating, indeed, but I was immediately struck by one of its features relevant to my invitation. Namely, only three out of the seventeen cards, or close to eighteen percent, are about art: “Pregnant Pause” (February 1, 1999), “Family Pride” (October 30, 1999), and “Lucio Fontana at Hayward Gallery” (November 21, 1999). After some thought, I realize this proportion reflects rather well my interest in art, rather than the fact that Bob is a poet.

Addendum I (February 29, 2000)

A while ago I asked Bob to count all the postcards I had ever sent him, as well as to count all the cards he had received that concern art. Given that an ever-larger proportion of my writings is not shared with others, this is something I cannot easily do myself. Today I received his response. The first piece I sent him was written on November 12, 1998, whereas the last was dated February 15, 2000. In that period I sent him 448 cards. In Bob’s estimation, 51 of them are about art. That amounts to a bit more than eleven percent of the total. As I started sending him everything I write about art only some six months ago, the proportion of my pieces on this subject is probably a bit higher—say, fifteen percent. And this indeed must be a fair reflection of my interest in art. In short, the first estimate was not far off the mark.

Addendum II (November 24, 2016)

I cannot but shake my head in amazement upon discovering this piece entirely by chance. According to the first addendum, about fifteen percent of my pieces were about art so many years ago. By now, that percentage has shrunk to zero. If I have anything to say about art nowadays, it is disparaging past compare. And yet, I still maintain that my Residua is an art project par excellence. As is the art of making oneself, which is what my magnum opus is ultimately about. Is this a contradiction? Nah. The end of art is still art, I reckon. But it is an eminently silent one.