...but now, fatigued by walking and standing, in streets and galleries, i am resting and writing in the RA cafe... and what is a cafe? to me and just now it is a space and an ambience in which it is possible to relax, talk, write, drink, eat, urinate-and-defecate (if they have a toilet)) and find a kind of public intimacy among strangers... (perhaps it is best thought of as a briefly rented public home?)
...just now i am thinking of 3 women who were laughing almost helplessly before they left...they were laughing at whatever each said... yes they were wiping noses of mucous as they wiped eyes of tears... i doubt if men would have laughed in that way, so givingly...
...in the exhibition i was possessed (as were many) by the strong feelings and the expressive 3-dimensional exaggerations of Rodin's sculptures - and i was particularly possessed by the outstretched left arm of The Monument to Victor Hugo... that straight limb, and the space between it and the inclined leg and torso beneath it... comprised for me that almost uncanny presence which i experience as the essence of sculpture... as when one suddenly encounters a person in a room where one thought there was no one...
...faces seen, presences felt, spaces enlivened, glances exchanged... these and such are the ingredients... and in the presence of such works as Rodin's we all begin to spontaneously posture and resemble these extraordinary naked forms, do we not?...
...yes there's something special about sculpture... along with cosmetics and tattooing and fashion and dress, and of course torture and dancing and sex, it's the most bodily art... 'and eating' says someone who is reading this...
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