Jacob Kassay, BRUSH, 2020

Jacob Kassay, 'BRUSH', 2020 – Interview filmed in March 2022 at Art : Concept, Paris.

In March 2020, as was the custom of the time, Jacob Kassay did an OVR, with a show no one could see at Galerie Art Concept in Paris of 19th century bricks made in Buffalo. That was followed by a bigger show, F’O’O’T’A’G’E’, in the summer. This past March, he talked about them in a brief video, above, which, like the rest of this pandemic, feels like time and space have collapsed.

The project is balanced in the space between these quotes: “I mean, I am relying on the pretension of people knowing about my relationship to painting for these to operate in a certain way.” and “I don’t think I have the ego enough to say like, ‘Oh, this is a readymade.'”

The word “balance” suddenly made me think of another work of saliently stamped bricks, but since it dates from the year after Ana Mendieta’s death, I’m not going to mention it here.