Tel Aviv, 1909
Tel Aviv, 2009
The smell of success
There is a short story by an anonymous Tuscan writer, estimated to be from the late thirteenth century, that describes an extraordinary transaction. The story explains how, in a Saracen neighborhood, a pauper carrying a piece of bread stops at a market stall where a cook is selling freshly cooked food. The pauper holds his bread over the stall owner’s pot so that it soaks up some of the flavor from the steam, and in this way vastly improves his meal. The stall owner, having not had much business that morning, takes offense and demands payment from the pauper. The pauper argues that except for the steam that was evaporating from the pot he has taken nothing from the cook and therefore does not owe him anything. The argument continues for a while and tensions escalate to the point that news of it reaches the Sultan. With the argument seemingly without any reasonable solution and both sides stubbornly refusing to back down, the Sultan gathers his advisors and sends for the fighting men. The Sultan’s wise men analyze the situation. Some agree that the steam did not belong to the cook, neither can it be considered food, and as there is no substance to it, the pauper should not be expected to pay for it. Others were sympathetic to the cook, saying that the steam was still a part of the food, it came from it and should be considered his product which he was entitled to charge for.
In the end they come to the fairest possible settlement. Since the cook sells his food for a set price, it is only right that the pauper pays what he owes according to the value of what he took. If the cook’s produce is to generate money in relation to its substance then, having sold steam, the appropriate payment would be to strike two coins together and let payment be made with the resulting sound.
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In the context of my daily activities, if I am asked what I do, the easiest answer is that I am an artist. Of course things are never that simple. A slightly longer explanation might be that since I was very young I have observed, examined, and recreated elements from the world in order to try and understand them better, and I hope to continue to do so for as long as I can. As I have developed, the things I have produced have become gradually more sophisticated (at least in a technical sense) and the questions that I ask have become more informed.
Now back to the point in question. Success in our time is generally measured by how much money one makes. A successful artist is expected to be a selling artist. We can certainly say an artist is successful if their work is in demand, or if they have gallery representation, or if they make money by being an artist, or best of all, if they are famous. However, most artists talk about whether their work is successful in terms of how they expected it to turn out.
Success, for many artists, depends on how well their ideas have been realized, and if they feel their work is progressing in a satisfactory way. Additionally, there is always a dialogue taking place, whereby ideas spread and evolve - dialogue between peers, between works, in the pages of magazines. Objects, for the most part, don't do very much on their own, they tend to stay very still.
Artists who do not make money from their work (of which there are many) could be compared to the cook whose produce reaches, excites, and enriches the lives of his neighbors without winning him any hard cash. We all hear the noise produced by money, the economy, the market, and, whilst there is no denying its importance, it can sometimes seem like it is the only thing that matters.
The point I am driving at is that the most important parts of a work of art - perhaps the most authentic elements of them - and many of the most interesting, worthwhile things to come from them, are no more tangible than sound or steam.
After all.. those are real.
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