Siyi Li, See You Cowboy, Someday, Somewhere, 2023, cardboard and glue, 60 x 80 x 80 cm
Rosa Nitzsche, Die Irrfahrt, 2023, video on snare stand, 6:24 min
Installation view, text
Exhibition poster
When we were leaving the conference and saying our goodbyes in the hotel lobby, he suggested making a playlist of songs that ‘had touched us somehow’. I felt embarrassed turning this farewell into a major event, but I also didn’t want to miss an opportunity to touch him. I sent a link to ‘All My Friends’ by the synth rock band LCD Soundsystem.
Famously, LCD Soundsystem announced that they were disbanding in 2011 and played a huge and histrionic farewell concert at Madison Square Garden. Just four years later they released a new album and began touring again. I thought the retracted goodbye was manipulative, but I couldn’t help loving the new music.
He later told me that the track I sent was selfishly long, that it had completely ruined the playlist.