Bert Mebius

Bert Mebius is this beguiling Dutch dude who I don’t know much about. He sent me an e-mail introducing himself, along with some stupendous sketches. He makes a new drawing every day, and posts them on his website, bertmebius.nl. I asked him to write a little bit about who he was, so he sent me a nine-part manifesto called One Day I Failed As An Artist. It’s pieced together out of ruminations on art school, flashes of violent dreams, childhood memories about going to the movies, and the lyrics of Jean Ferrat. It’s kinda long, so here’s just a small segment that may shed some light on the mind of Mebius, impenetrable illustrator of the Netherlands:

5. On the day I failed as an artist, I wrecked my studio.

I was at my work table (where I spent hopeful hours doing nothing nearly every day), kicked over the chair and up-ended the table. Which took a bit of an effort; it was a heavy table. Everything in my studio was of the highest quality.

After the table it was the turn of the cupboards where I kept my materials. I pushed them over, spilling out their barely used contents: pens, brushes, pencils, chalks, tubes, pots, bottles, rollers, buckets, marker pens, spray cans, tape, stags of paper in all shapes and sizes, scores of sketchpads ( in all shapes and sizes), boxes with clippings, scrapbooks, projectors, rulers. I pulled out the phone plug and hurled the phone into a corner. Then came the paintings, or more accurately the empty canvases I had stretched and prepared myself, which were stacked in layers against the walls. I kicked them, booted some of them to pieces and slung them onto the pile. Ventian blinds and curtains were next. The bookcase (art books, art magazines) was the last to hit the floor. Hier und jetzt: das tun was zu tun ist by Jörg Immendorff ended up on top. Pure coincidence.

6. My failure as an artist did not consist of the fact that I had destroyed my studio (nor the days, weeks, months of stagnation and inertia that preceded it), but that I had failed to photograph the aftermath. I only realised this much later, when I saw Jeff Wall’s The Destroyed Room.