I came to Holland
at the age of 23
to see American art.
I missed South-Africa
and often felt very lonely.
Here are some of the lines written then.
Holland 1977
I’m as cold inside myself today
as some Hitler’s mistress somewhere.
Apart from that
it’s ‘quite a nice day’.
Doomed to room
We are doomed doomed to rooms
where we watch motionless
the motionless done works of others
behind glass and/or other
transparent materials.
First Flights Overseas. Originally published in The Bread and Butter Stone, The Douglas Hyde Gallery on Memory, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 1997 [selected fragments]; and included in Marlene Dumas, Sweet Nothings. Notes and Texts, first edition Galerie Paul Andriesse and De Balie Publishers Amsterdam, 1998; and second edition (revised and expanded) Koenig Books London, 2014.