DR VOID
You probably expected to see it here.
Photographs.
Titles.
Dimensions.
Dates.
Perhaps prices.
But my work is not here.
And it never will be.
We live in a time when almost everything we create is expected to become visible almost immediately.
A work is photographed.
Published.
Described.
Valued.
Sold.
As if art must be presented to the world in order to prove that it ever existed.
I have always wondered:
why?
Why must art have an audience?
Why must it become someone’s property?
Why is an artist expected to preserve everything they create?
And why is the value of a work so often measured by how many people have seen it, wanted it, or were able to buy it?
I create primarily for myself.
Sometimes for a particular person.
Not for the market.
Not for an algorithm.
Not to keep filling this website with new images.
I have created entire series of works.
And then destroyed them.
Not because they were bad.
Not because I had lost faith in them.
There simply came a point when their existence felt complete.
We tend to think of destruction as the opposite of creation.
I am not so sure.
Sometimes destruction is the final part of a work.
Its final full stop.
For some reason, we have decided that art must remain.
A canvas must stay on a wall.
A work must enter a collection.
A collection must be preserved.
An artist’s name must outlive the artist.
We are deeply uncomfortable with disappearance.
So we preserve photographs, objects, letters, works, names.
As if the number of things we leave behind could somehow undo one simple fact:
one day, almost everything will disappear.
But disappearance does not make existence meaningless.
A conversation does not become less important because no one recorded it.
A touch does not lose its meaning because it cannot be preserved.
A person does not become less real because one day they will no longer be here.
So why should art have to prove its value by lasting forever?
Some of my works exist for years.
Some for a short time.
Some have been seen only by me.
Some belong to the people they were created for.
Some no longer exist.
That does not trouble me.
I do not create in order to build an enormous archive of my own existence.
I do not need a catalogue as proof that I was an artist.
I am not particularly interested in proving it at all.
I do not create art in order to turn it into a commodity.
I create because sometimes a thought demands a form.
A canvas.
A sentence.
A trace.
A physical presence.
And sometimes there comes a moment when that form is no longer necessary.
Then I allow it to disappear.
Perhaps art does not have to belong to eternity.
Perhaps it is enough for it to happen once.
Between the artist and the work.
Between the work and another person.
Between one thought and the next.
And if nothing physical remains afterward,
that does not mean nothing happened.
You came here to see my work.
It is not here.
Only an empty space remains.
But perhaps you are already looking at one of my works.
— DR. VOID
Photographs.
Titles.
Dimensions.
Dates.
Perhaps prices.
But my work is not here.
And it never will be.
We live in a time when almost everything we create is expected to become visible almost immediately.
A work is photographed.
Published.
Described.
Valued.
Sold.
As if art must be presented to the world in order to prove that it ever existed.
I have always wondered:
why?
Why must art have an audience?
Why must it become someone’s property?
Why is an artist expected to preserve everything they create?
And why is the value of a work so often measured by how many people have seen it, wanted it, or were able to buy it?
I create primarily for myself.
Sometimes for a particular person.
Not for the market.
Not for an algorithm.
Not to keep filling this website with new images.
I have created entire series of works.
And then destroyed them.
Not because they were bad.
Not because I had lost faith in them.
There simply came a point when their existence felt complete.
We tend to think of destruction as the opposite of creation.
I am not so sure.
Sometimes destruction is the final part of a work.
Its final full stop.
For some reason, we have decided that art must remain.
A canvas must stay on a wall.
A work must enter a collection.
A collection must be preserved.
An artist’s name must outlive the artist.
We are deeply uncomfortable with disappearance.
So we preserve photographs, objects, letters, works, names.
As if the number of things we leave behind could somehow undo one simple fact:
one day, almost everything will disappear.
But disappearance does not make existence meaningless.
A conversation does not become less important because no one recorded it.
A touch does not lose its meaning because it cannot be preserved.
A person does not become less real because one day they will no longer be here.
So why should art have to prove its value by lasting forever?
Some of my works exist for years.
Some for a short time.
Some have been seen only by me.
Some belong to the people they were created for.
Some no longer exist.
That does not trouble me.
I do not create in order to build an enormous archive of my own existence.
I do not need a catalogue as proof that I was an artist.
I am not particularly interested in proving it at all.
I do not create art in order to turn it into a commodity.
I create because sometimes a thought demands a form.
A canvas.
A sentence.
A trace.
A physical presence.
And sometimes there comes a moment when that form is no longer necessary.
Then I allow it to disappear.
Perhaps art does not have to belong to eternity.
Perhaps it is enough for it to happen once.
Between the artist and the work.
Between the work and another person.
Between one thought and the next.
And if nothing physical remains afterward,
that does not mean nothing happened.
You came here to see my work.
It is not here.
Only an empty space remains.
But perhaps you are already looking at one of my works.
— DR. VOID
MY WORK
DR VOID