Letter from Hans Werner Geerdts to J.P. Hodin

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[Transcription/translation]

marrakech, 4.8.1978

dear friend, cher ami, lieber joseph!

it’s time i wrote, even though i have nothing to show, nothing at all. the catalogue seems (!) to have gone to print. my depression (a real cause for concern) lifted as soon as i got home. i stayed in amsterdam only briefly, to visit a friend who suffers with constant depression, and spent even less time in paris, where i was picking up my teeth. i’m coming to the realisation that i can’t exist outside these walls. i can live only here, where my work is. work! it seems everything is geared towards it. i think it was the regimented, regulated, work-oriented society of europe that made me ill, but it also inspired me to try to come to terms with it again. i made a series of paintings – the exact opposite of the sort of thing i do in morocco. paintings from the provinces, sides of humanity – started on newsprint: ‘stellengesuche’ [positions sought] are blocks of black with people (deformed letters) peering out from beneath, ‘…mit unverbaubarer aussicht’ [with unimpeded prospects] are advertisements arranged into groups of people and placed before the eyes like a barrier… ‘stellenangebote’ [positions vacant] are people enclosed within frames standing in rank and file (set out like the letters in the advertisements)… and so on and so forth… ‘titelblätter’ [title pages], ‘in der stadt’ [in the city], ‘immobilien-traum‘ [property dream]… to name but a few other subjects. on a larger scale: rows of people en masse, an army of officials, and then: the reckoning with unknowns: instead of numbers and script, figures arranged in just the same way… almost anxiety inducing, or a little cynical, a small act of revenge against europe.

i’ll photograph everything when i get home so you get a better sense of what i’ve been doing… today i’m heading north for four weeks (ramadan!), to the coast beyond cabo negro, where hopefully the heat will be bearable.

then i’ll be back here again at the beginning of september – with renewed vigour, no doubt!

many kind regards to you and yours.

sincerely,

geerdts

p.s. did the transfer of 100 pounds go through?

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