T-GREEN AND FRIENDS

T-Green and Friends

JOBKLUB

I wonder what it is to be a mafioso, I wonder what it is to wear bling and like football, and girls with big tits and tramp stamps and cars with chrome wheels. But I know this is also kind of made up. I got to that age where I can see that if I had less opportunity I would grab something fast and flashy. Hope to make enough money to send my kid to college. Still I want to feel a bit, want to pretend to be MTV. To celebrate and feel the chants, the ghetto, the bling, the beefy attitude.

Social democracy was born in the 20th century in actuality. In England this form of social organization gave rise to what is now a job klub – during the tea break a team of builders sits around and talks about the miserable state of their lives, there lack of opportunity, hopes, shared problems, the need for work. At least in England the labour party arises from these informal chats. Tea time conversation leads to social welfare. Ragged trousered philanthropy, Full monty, Brassed off, UB40.

Aspirations – the zoom rocket ice lolly

I remember as a child, dreaming of going into space. Who doesn’t? The cool colours dripping on a hot day, fantasies of exploration and conquest, of silent knowledge, of oneness with the universe, of peace tranquility and power. They seem to have renamed zoom cactus, anyway I wanted to be a cowboy too.

Genetics –

Mendel, a Czech monk spends years with pea experiments to discover how we develop traits, publishing Experiments on Plant Hybridization in 1865. How we are good at some things and not others, how we can all be different, how we can have strengths and weaknesses and pass these on.

Placenta –

food for growth, ritual, concentrated with minerals and vitamins, restoration of strength to the mother. Biological marvelous waste, illegal to store (hazard). In Africa and till recently many parts of Europe the placenta was buried and a tree planted on the spot as a gift of rejuvenation to the earth.

Time freezer –

I’m coming through a mask, sticking but running, holding on to something precious. I’m lying on my back in the summer looking up at trees in the breeze, at the sky, at the clouds. I know deep down that this is good for me. I don’t have a job, but I don’t have a care for a few minutes. Photosynthesis gave an atmosphere for my existence, the breeze blows in clouds, the water makes up my body, binds me together, keeps me alive. I know all this happy accident, I am a product of what there is to produce me. Still think it easier to be happy surrounded by similar elements. If I think this to the nth degree I could hate anything. I’m perfect here, and the clouds and trees and sky won’t answer back, though I’m full of heavy metals from years of smoking, I guess the sky is full, and the trees are full from years of humans making smoke. So we recognize each other cos' we grow and die together.

Form 482 R.Sz. –

In the UK we have an unemployment benefit form UB40. On my birth certificate and that of my mother and father parents work is established. My fathers father is listed as a painter and decorator, my mothers father a salesman. My grandmothers father was a labourer, his wife's occupation is not listed. On my mum and dad's wedding license their parents occupations are listed. Jobs are the important factor. Religion is not mentioned, and not applicable. England is capitalistic. Is this why? A job, a place in the community, existence justified through work, not work justified by religion.
So what is this "Arbeit macht frei?"
Caste versus class?
If I look at my family tree, my mother put together our family tree before she became ill with Parkinson's, I see a list of jobs. I don’t see a mark of religion by which I can determine what job was allowed. However I know my grandmother was pulled out of teaching training because her father could not afford it.

So I know economically what things mean. I know my aunt started work full time at the age of 14 in the cotton mill, and worked till she was 60 and never missed a day. I know my grandfather was unemployed for 8 years during the depression. This I know.

The English like to talk about the weather –

When I taught English here in Hungary I used to ask the very direct and insensitive question What did your grandfather do in the War?. It turns out that nobody at all ever knew the answer to this question. Not a single person. Perhaps it is not possible to answer, perhaps these things are not discussed in polite society.

When I was back in England in February, my mother was having some psychological therapy. She has a lot to talk about, but she surprised by telling me that she was going to stop going because she knew all the answers anyway, she just couldn't deal with them.
My father wondered aloud in a private moment why my mother needed therapy at all Your grandfather was in two world wars and he never needed any therapy.
The following day, quite out of the blue my mother told me about my grandfathers death. He was in hospital and was annoying the nurses by continually kicking his sheets from the bed, exposing his body, making them tuck him again. During World War I, my mother said, my granddad was fighting in the trenches. He was buried alive twice and had to be dug out by his friends.
(video installation - not pictured)

The konvektor

is a socialist icon, cheap and effective heating for everyone. Like the American dream, the automobile, but the konvektor is pretty unsexy. No chrome and plastic, mirrors, glass. Nowhere to go to except into the warmth of family and familiarity. Cooped up against harsh winters. Snug and secretive. Not like the brash extrovert pomposity of twin exhausts, bench seats, wings, fins, grilles, flashing lights and blowing claxons.

Hungarian Pimp my Ride as a concept, has little basis in historical mythology but it accords pretty well with post-communist Audi A8 driving entrepreneur.
I wanted to democratize the dream.

Ping-pong –

Pingpong table floats like a persian garden, a flying carpet, a distillation of a universe or an atomic force. Although the players are fighting for supremacy they are bound by rules to give back the ball. The only allowable permutation is the other player’s failure to return. This should be a disappointment to the victor. A game is a specie the ultimate type of which is marked hypothetically, the giving of bling in the form of an Olympic gold.

Flex Hungarica –

Co-joined mutation; self mutilates its twin. Internal desire for conquest. This could be violent or sexual. The presence in the fossil record is a rarity.

Új csövek –

Systems are not exclusive. They are shared. When we show our colours we give a signal to those around we are prepared to do better. The Solarium is a meditative place. Pampering and warm. We hope a butterfly will emerge from its pupa, but sometimes the result is burned and irritable, or like an emperor stupidly proud of his new clothes.

Thanks to Muhammad for making bedouin tea over coals, and under the colours of Algeria, his birthplace.

Art indulges in public private therapy. What else is an artist but ego driven, so I don't feel bad about forcing myself on you today.

chinese characters

CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE

JOBKLUB