Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1924 - 1929

Here's a pale blue letter, addressed to Philip Zilcken, from Lya Berger, made in 1924. It's a funny thing, isn't it, how a mundane object like an envelope can become something else entirely when it's looked at in the right way? The smudged stamps and faded ink tell a story of movement and exchange. The postal markings are so concrete, so immediate – they root the piece in time and place and yet the handwriting loops and curls across the page, defying any fixed meaning. I’m drawn to the imperfect circle of the Paris postmark, and the way its rough edges contrast with the crisp lines of the 'Cheques Postaux' stamp. This interplay of textures and shapes – the smoothness of the paper against the roughness of the ink, the careful script against the haphazard stamps – reminds me that art, like life, is full of these small moments of dissonance and harmony. It reminds me of some of the correspondence pieces made by Ray Johnson. Art's just an ongoing conversation, isn't it? A way of talking to each other across time and space.