An innocent drink in The Social ended by giving me a real life vision of myself. The steps of GOMA, a landmark not only for a city, but a landmark that holds so much of my journey. The steps i've taken individually and one or two together.......it's a place i'll never walk by without smiling and yet frowning. Subtlety was the key to our adventure, not just to others, but to ourselves, each knowing our reality was as real as the exhibits that look for life in that museum. A museum of memories, guilt is locked inside the magic of two people coming together......yet no tomorrow can ever be allowed to live. An existence based on half truths and an ecstacy based on whole truths. Hiding in the corners of that museum are secrets never to be told, we never took time to properly explore the exhibition. An exhibit..... we'll call you 'A' I searched that museum, quietly looking for something to identify with, but your artist wasn't ready for a public viewing. Did Damien Hirst mould you? Now i ponder.....No, he couldn't possibly have mistaken you for a Pickled Cow! Although i could have, again and again!
Now i'm standing quietly watching the exhibit being packed ever so neatly into a van. Piece by piece, it's being so carefully layered as so not to lose the peaceful order that it had demanded. I watch it leave and as i look at GOMA i realise it will always be empty to me now. I wish i'd had the courage to break in one night, in the darkness. I wish i'd had the courage to run free from floor to floor with my hands in the air and my conscience free. I wish i'd found you there. I wish i'd explored the deeper side of you, i wish i'd paid attention to the Pickled Cow that Damien Hirst forgot to exhibit. In a fantasy world, when reality is shelved, if only for an evening...... the price for entrance was steep. The doorman required as a deposit my mind. I gave it gladly. A world was opened to me. Your exhibition has shown me that some experiences are meant to be set as photographs to the mind for eternity.