TE22 Potpourri

Manuel Baixauli

UNKNOWN

slow digestion. It’s a challenge to discover someone! The hard work that follows the discovery, the task of disseminating and promoting, that I delegate to trusted people. Let them make a profit, I just want to have fun! I make a few calls, write up a few recommendations, and that’s that. They’ll take it from there. I only leave the house to walk my dog.” “You were telling me about the young woman who showed up announced.” “Indeed! What genes! What a voice! A delight for the eyes and the ears. Call me a dinosaur, call me Australopithecus, call me a fiend, a Neanderthal . . . I couldn’t care less! Beauty intimidates me, perhaps because it’s always eluded me. I invited the siren in, she told me who she was, she once again begged me to visit herdamndad’s damn studio. Theundiscovered genius! Shewas desperate to know what I thought, she didn’t trust critics and galleryowners. She said that contemporaryart, fromwhat she’d seen in the city and when traveling, and in a few magazines, was headed along very distant paths from her father’s. I always like to hear that. I asked her what she did for a living, if she had any connections to the art world. No, she said. She’s a nurse.” Occasionally, as he spoke, the Master sucked nervously on his cigarette and blew smoke out the window. “Did I decide to go because I was intrigued by her father’swork, or because of the joy I felt looking at her and listening to her? That’s inconsequential. I asked if she had brought photos of 82

his work. No. She was afraid that the photos wouldn’t do it justice. It’s not high-impact painting , she said, it’s all in the details . I liked hearing that too. I agreed to visit his studio, not that same day, but the next, today, on the condition that she would drive me there and back.”

“And it turned out her father is no genius.”

“Far from it! The girl doesn’t have a fucking clue about art. She only goes into museums as a tourist. To give you an idea, her father’s lame pieces were along the oneiric lines of early Tàpies, Cuixart, Joan Ponç . . . You know, Dau al Set stuff, but with a childish, unskilled delivery. Naïf. What short-sightedness! She seesageniuswhere I seeonlyahobbyistventing his frustrations. I told her: Talent is a lottery. You either have it or you don’t. If you have talent, develop it, put in the time, a whole life, but if you don’t, then don’t overthink it. Either enjoy your hobby or let it go. Painting does your father good. Encourage him! But don’t try to take it further. There’s nothing there. That’s what I said, and she turned yellow, trembling, about to explode.”

“Poor thing!”

“I tried to smooth things over. I failed.”

“How?”

“ You are incredibly fortunate , I said. Look out the window. We looked. Her hair, so close to me, smelled sweet like a baby. Out 83