Letter from Hans Werner Geerdts to J.P. Hodin

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[Transcription/translation]

15.12.1978

dear joseph,

for the festive season i would have liked very much to have presented you with the catalogue as a little surprise… alas! heaven knows what’s going on there. a few people said there was a fire at the printers, on top of everything! but i haven’t had a word from the printers yet…

well, for now i’m sending you and yours my best wishes for the new year. i hope you’ll remain as active and productive as you have been in the past. when we spoke in june you said you were starting work on a new topic. i wish you every success with that also.

i’m sure you’ve received my post with the photos by now. the new series is assuming ever greater forms. i’m working on hessian more and more these days – unprimed, black on ochre. the reckonings with unknowns are becoming more and more concentrated. i also have texts to accompany the sheets, texts taken from the newspapers, texts that show how german the german language is. there’s so much that one just glosses over in the newspapers. it’s only when it’s taken out of context and presented in conjunction with an image, that is, when it’s put in a different context, that one becomes aware of what’s actually being said!

i’ve also finished my first ‘volume of poetry’. they’re human figures as letters, in verses, couplets, sonnets – or chaos… some in colour, that is, for example, the figures at the ends of the lines tend to become reddish, whereas the beginnings are yellow – or the lines are in green with just one line in blue… and so on. you really have to leaf through the booklet to enjoy it properly.

these things, i think, should be taken as a whole: the series, the hessian paintings, the collages, the objects and the prints and drawings need to be enriched with a few examples from my cipher period so that the contrast really comes out.

i don’t know if i can hope to exhibit in london next year – with your help? i haven’t heard anything from cologne yet, and nothing from two other places either. wait and see! i’m not even interested in selling a lot of work – i just want people to know about it – ideally in germany, of course, because the texts are about germany.

but enough about that. what do you and your family have planned in terms of travel next year? i wonder if i can expect a return visit to marrakech! i’d be delighted to see you.

my friend from the shipping industry has offered me a trip around the world (by boat over six months), but i don’t think i’ll take him up on it. six months is too long. i may travel to the USA in august/september (hear, hear!). my friends in california keep writing and writing and saying it would be worth the trip. but i still have no idea what i would do. i wish i could take an exhibition over there!

please excuse the typed letter! my handwriting is just a scrawl and too laborious to decipher. but the greetings are no less sincere for it. kind regards, then, to you, pam and your daughter, and all the best for 1979!

yours,

geerdts

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