When shooting, the first thing you might hear is, “What are you doing?” I say, “Pictures.” Followed by, “What’s it for?” I say, “Nuthin.” A real Thinker is uninterested in answers, so i asked, “what’s been on your mind?”
Thinker, “Why did they put me outside?”
RealStill, “I’ve asked myself the same question.”
Thinker, “I’m not complaining. It’s great out here, nothing compares to it, it’s life, and I’m embedded in it. I’ve been inside, and, I know, it is very different, almost another world.”
RealStill, “Never go in there, but, it is art. By the way when you have the ability to sense, life is five times as great as you think it is, not to mention mobility.”
Thinker, “I do experience out here – the good and the bad, its’…”
RealStill,…better? Even when you got blown off your pedestal in 1970?”
Thinker, “Things are better out here, with impact. I’m better for it, so is the world that I’m planted on, outside this museum. It wasn’t sugarcoated. I was put back on the pedestal with all the damage preserved from the explosion. I’ve become more than a statue, a document of a certain time. I’m damaged, it hurts, but i speak with certainty.”
RealStill, “You and Danny Greene. Time exists out here, and it’s another time when meaning is in flux, like 1970 when someone blew you up. Statues are easy, obvious property targets.
Thinker, “That flux and sway out here – joy is matched by pain. I understand, inside, but…”
RealStill…but they don’t get it, in their four walls? In comfort culture tragedy is replaced in a controlled space. They don’t consider by contact, that would really change things. That’s the way it works out here, all is challenged, only what’s real is proof.
Thinker, “That’s what I think, too. Is that why I’ve seen you here, off and on, since 1979?”
RealStill, “As soon as I become successful that will end.”
Thinker “It won’t be necessary any more, to do this?”
RealStill, “That’s what I like about you, all you got is questions.”
Thinker, “I’m the Thinker.”
RealStill, “Then you already know why I’m here tonight, and why I don’t want to come back.”
Thinker, “Getting it right, thinking about the thing-in-itself and not thinking about thinking.”
RealStill, “You got it. See you next time.”