Post-it

Letting Go Poem

An Paenhuysen

When I teach art criticism, my favourite exercise is inspired by the Fluxus artist Robert Filliou, who was an advocate for co-creative writing. Once, at the closing of an exhibition, Filliou, together with the artist Emmett Williams, asked the audience to write down the name of something or somebody they would gladly get rid of. These were then collected and read out loud as a collective poem. I adapt this exercise, giving everyone a post-it and ask them to write down what they as art critics would like to let go of. We collect the post-its and read them out loud. The word that pops up most is ‘fear’. Writing itself is actually the remedy for fear. Take Jacques Derrida, who stated in a 2002 documentary film that ‘nothing intimidates me when I write’. But then, even for him, there is sometimes a moment upon falling asleep: ‘All of a sudden I ́m terrified by what I ́m doing.’ Derrida concluded: ‘When I’m awake, conscious, working, in a certain way I am more unconscious than in my half sleep.’