Old Flames

In the coast of Galicia, in Northwestern Spain, there is an old trade called “crebeiro” from “creba”, the name given to anything brought to shore by the sea: wood, buoys, cargo lost during a storm or because of a shipwreck, sometimes the shipwreck itself, etc. Some of the stuff may be, or appear to be, worthless, but some of it can be valuable and there are people who work at systematically combing the coastline after storms, looking for whatever the sea has brought in. By the law of the sea all this debris has no owner, whoever gets there first, claims the price. Over the years this has produced more than one ugly confrontation. I spend time in that part of Spain every year, and I started picking up expendable lighters because I find them beautiful, showing the effects of time after being thrown overboard in the ocean, before catching a current or being beached in a storm. I have dozens of them. I guess that this makes me a “crebeiro” of sorts. This past summer I went out one morning with the video camera and I found three of them in a small secluded beach, very good for finding things. Why do I find them beautiful? Because, in this case, beauty is bestowed by nature and time and, also, because when I observe them they make me think of things that are interesting with an aesthetic value of their own, like a written text. These three derelict lighters are the only ones that I documented in video at the very moment of being found, and this is what makes them, instead of many others that I have accumulated over the years, the subject of this exhibit at the Davis Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona.

The title is not neutral, obviously, it is an old English expression used to refer to old lovers. I don’t think that it is necessary, in his case, to elaborate in the potential metaphorical ramifications to be found in any conceivable conjunction of words and objects. If I were to metaphorically elaborate on the subject, however, I would not be able to avoid seeing myself reflected on the cold blade of time, that blade which penetrates slowly, so slowly that when you realize what is happening, you are already dead.