Asking Salgado about the intentions, symbolism, or directive in this collection of paintings – because it’s obviously ripe with his (now) trademark imagery – he becomes deferential, ambiguous, and almost evasive about everything from idea to technique, to presentation, and even the compelling title piece: a rare venture into sculpture which seems – whether through its books or its chair, or its uncanny, discombobulated human parts – to reference the paintings and even the act of painting itself. But also books. Words. Memory. Fallability. That head at the apex is glass. It’s his.
“That colour is celadon. Nice word. Beautiful colour. Blue-green. Light manganese. Like Listerine. Those Penguin Modern Classics. And my Nabokovs. I love Nabokov.” He adds: “I was working my way through the lot of them. Slowly. Books are like time. An author you love is like a memory you cherish. It’s like time, right? How much time is enough time? There’s never enough time. That clock is always ticking. So, I had only a few Nabokovs left. And I always read blind. I never read a blurb. Avoid a summary; it’s the worst. And I was selecting at random. I chose Glory. But I was apprehensive to start. Because every next book meant there was one book less. So I chose Glory and I remember thinking, that’s a strange title. Glory. Glory could be about anything. Until I opened it up, until I actually started reading. Glory could be about everything.”
If paintings are chapters, viewers are invited to explore them in whatever order they like. As members of a larger audience, we supplant meaning into the books we read, we interpret meaning from the sentences we hear. “But it’s all there. It’s ready for the taking. And whatever you take from it – from the books, or the paintings, or the ideas within – it’s all right. It’s all correct. There are no wrong answers.”
