Art

Question 1

Marc alone

Answer 1

My friend Serge has bought a painting. It’s a canvas about five foot by four: white. The background is white and, if you screw up your eyes, you can make out some fine white diagonal lines.
Serge is one of my oldest friends. He’s done very well for himself, he’s a dermatologist
and he’s keen on art.
On Monday I went over to see the painting; Serge had actually got hold of it on the Saturday, but he’d been lusting after it for several months.
This white painting with white lines.

Question 2

Long pause

Answer 2

Expensive

Question 3

A hundred thousand euros

Answer 3

A hundred thousand…?

Question 4

Huntingdon would take it off my hands for a hundred and twenty.

Answer 4

Who’s that?

Question 5

Huntingdon

Answer 5

Never heard of him

Question 6

Huntingdon! The Huntingdon Gallery!

Answer 6

The Huntingdon Gallery would take it off your hands for a hundred and twenty?

Question 7

No, not the Gallery. Him. Huntingdon himself. For his own collection.

Answer 7

Then why didn’t Huntingdon buy it?

Question 8

Then why didn’t Huntingdon buy it? Serge It’s important for them to sell to private clients.
That’s how the market circulates.

Answer 8

Mm hm…

Question 9

Well?

Answer 9

…

Question 10

You’re not in the right place. Look at it from this angle. Can you see the lines?

Answer 10

What’s the name of the…?

Question 11

Painter. Antrios.

Answer 11

Well known?

Question 12

Very. Very!

Answer 12

Serge, you haven’t bought this painting for a hundred thousand euros?

Question 13

You don’t understand, that’s what it costs. It’s an Antrios.

Answer 13

You haven’t bought this painting for a hundred thousand euros?

Question 14

I might have known you’d miss the point.

Answer 14

You paid a hundred thousand euros for this shit?

Question 15

My friend Marc’s an intelligent enough fellow, I’ve always valued our relationship, he has a good job, he’s an aeronautical engineer, but he’s one of those intellectuals who are not only enemies of modernism but seem to take some sort of incomprehensible pride in running it down…
In recent years these nostalgia-merchants have become quite breathtakingly arrogant.
What do you mean, ‘this shit’?

Answer 15

Serge, where’s your sense of humour? Why aren’t you laughing?… It’s astonishing, you buying this painting.

Question 16

I don’t care how astonishing you think it is, I don’t mind if you laugh, but I would like to know what you mean by ‘this shit”.

Answer 16

You’re taking the piss!

Question 17

No, I’m not. By whose standards is it shit? If you call something shit, you need to have some criterion to judge it by.

Answer 17

Who are you talking to? Who do you think you’re talking to? Hello!…

Question 18

You have no interest whatsoever in contemporary painting, you never have had. This is a field about which you know absolutely nothing, so how can you assert that any given object, which conforms to laws you don’t understand, is shit?

Answer 18

…Because it is. It’s shit. I’m sorry.

Question 19

He doesn’t like the painting.
Fine.
But there was no warmth in the way he reacted.
No attempt.
No warmth when he dismissed it out of hand.
Just that vile, pretentious laugh.
A real know-all laugh. I hated that laugh.

Answer 19

It’s a complete mystery to me, Serge buying this painting. It’s unsettled me, it’s filled me with some indefinable unease.

When I left his place, I had to take three granules of Gelsemium 9c which Paula recommended - Gelsemium or Ignatia, she said, Gelsemium or Ignatia, which do you prefer? I mean, how should I know? - because I couldn’t begin to understand how Serge, my friend, could have bought that picture.

A hundred thousand euros! He’s comfortably off, but he’s hardly rolling in money. Comfortable, that’s all, just comfortable. And he spends a hundred grand on a white painting.

Question 20

Marcs long line continued

Answer 20

I must go and see Yvan, he’s a friend of ours, I have to discuss this with Yvan. Mind you, Yvan’s a very tolerant bloke, which, of course, when it comes to relationships, is the worst thing you can be.
Yvan’s tolerant because he couldn’t care less. If Yvan tolerates the fact that Serge has spent a hundred grand on some piece of white shit, it’s because he couldn’t care less about Serge.
Obviously

Question 21

I’m Yvan.

I’m a bit tense at the moment, because, having spent my life in textiles, I’ve just found a new job as a sales agent for a wholesale stationery business. People like me. My professional life has always been a failure and I’m getting married in a couple of weeks. She’s a lovely intelligent girl from a good family.

Answer 21

What are you doing

Question 22

I’m looking for the top of my pen.

Answer 22

All right, that’s enough.

Question 23

I had it five minutes ago.

Answer 23

It doesn’t matter