Kitengela
I always think of Jean-Vincent Simonet’s work in verbs. It seems easier that way, and how else do you talk about photographs that make it feel like you’re tripping (a verb) on mushrooms? So I was surprised to see a photograph that instead felt like nouns on the first page of Kitengela, his latest book. It’s of a red, domed building seen from a distance, peeking above a dense green forest. It’s a strange building though. Some bits are flatter than others, and some thicker than others like they’ve been patched with pastry. On top are two crooked antenna-like things. In another world they could be chimneys. Here, anything or nothing – a quasi-dwelling-cum-experiment. But the photograph itself is normal by most standards – best described in nouns – which for Simonet is not normal. I learn from Léa Besanceney’s delicate introduction that the building belongs to Kitengela, a village just outside Nairobi and the subject of Simonet’s book. It is a village of kinds – founded in 1979 by German artist Nani Croze – but it’s also had other labels: glass studio, workshop, retreat, attraction, commune, and for some, utopia. I get the impression though that each never stays for long, or they overlap with others until a new word appears.
I turn the page expecting more Simonet, more verb. Instead, another straight picture of Kitengela, this time an earthen building up close, rough and wonky with a dazzling blue mosaic window. On the other page, dense undergrowth with a path at the bottom that looks like shattered glass from a Magritte painting. I turn the page again. Nani, in the midday sun, painting what looks like one of the first walls of Kitengela. Then some photographs from Kitengela’s early days alongside a stained reflexology chart, followed by two posters for an exhibition of glass beads from 1995. More (noun) pictures and drawings, old magazine pages, oil drums full of coloured glass, and people working, talking, smiling. It’s rich and layered, a history made of histories and fragments with no edges. But it’s different than Simonet’s past work. Less psychedelic rush, more flaneur-like walk. Soon I realise that Simonet isn’t going to dissolve this world in the same blazing way he has done in the past. That this won’t be the shimmering trip of Waterworks or In Bloom. I know this isn’t Tokyo, but it would be easy for Simonet to melt everything, make Kitengela shimmer and drip in his intoxicating way. It’s what he knows and it’s what we know.
I find Simonet later in the book. It’s gradual at first – a verb here and there – then more frequent. Objects start to vibrate, leak, and trip, until in the last few pages, Kitengela’s kaleidoscopic world and Simonet seem to fuse, crescendo, and break down into some kind of primal matter. Part electrical storm, part blown-out speaker. I page through again – it’s more obvious now. Order to disorder. Noun to verb.
I have a hunch why Simonet made the book this way. Kitengela leading, Simonet following. It’s strangely obvious, but Kitengela has (and is) a story, and stories need telling – not melting. What good would it do to make everything drip and shimmer? What good would it do to make the picture of Nani lying on a sofa under a blanket of dogs drip and shimmer? Little, I think. Likewise, if Simonet had edited the book differently and began with himself (with verbs), the story would be lost. There’s a maturity in this, for Simonet to step back and recognise something very real in a surreal world. I think many artists would shirk such an obvious truth, shy away from beginning, middle and end in search of something new or radical. Simonet hasn’t, and Kitengela is an exceptional book for it. It’s also why Kitengela feels so different from past work. In Bloom was all late nights and blurry hedonism. There wasn’t a story as such, more event. Kitengela is different – it has a story. Simonet tells it in the first half of the book with photographs and photographs of photographs. Endless layers that feel like nouns. In the second half, he starts to think out loud, reflect, and add to the story. History to future joins order to disorder. It sounds simple when I write it like that, but it’s taken me days. I’m not surprised it took Simonet five years.
And maybe the end feels like a blown-out speaker because, after everything, Simonet isn’t sure what’s next for Kitengela. It’s unresolved, frayed, but honest. Certainty to uncertainty joins the pack. I look at the end again and remember Estelle Hoy writing about the French writer, Pierre Guyotat. She talks about his book Coma and how he ends it “sans full-stop and instead a comma – a gesture of continuation”. Simonet has done something similar with Kitengela. Let the end melt and spark because there is no end, leaving it open to be remade yet again as it has been since 1979. A fitting ‘end’.
A week after finishing this, it strikes me that maybe Simonet also didn’t reach for his normal verbs (at least not as many) because Kitengela is already full of them. Make, do, build, undo, remake. Kitengela is more process than anything. Glass is just the cherry on top, colouring the world the same way Simonet’s happy accidents do. It’s as if Simonet has found all his chance and chemistry in a real place. I hope I’m right.
I always think of Jean-Vincent Simonet’s work in verbs. It seems easier that way, and how else do you talk about photographs that make it feel like you’re tripping (a verb) on mushrooms? So I was surprised to see a photograph that instead felt like nouns on the first page of Kitengela, his latest book. It’s of a red, domed building seen from a distance, peeking above a dense green forest. It’s a strange building though. Some bits are flatter than others, and some thicker than others like they’ve been patched with pastry. On top are two crooked antenna-like things. In another world they could be chimneys. Here, anything or nothing – a quasi-dwelling-cum-experiment. But the photograph itself is normal by most standards – best described in nouns – which for Simonet is not normal. I learn from Léa Besanceney’s delicate introduction that the building belongs to Kitengela, a village just outside Nairobi and the subject of Simonet’s book. It is a village of kinds – founded in 1979 by German artist Nani Croze – but it’s also had other labels: glass studio, workshop, retreat, attraction, commune, and for some, utopia. I get the impression though that each never stays for long, or they overlap with others until a new word appears.
I turn the page expecting more Simonet, more verb. Instead, another straight picture of Kitengela, this time an earthen building up close, rough and wonky with a dazzling blue mosaic window. On the other page, dense undergrowth with a path at the bottom that looks like shattered glass from a Magritte painting. I turn the page again. Nani, in the midday sun, painting what looks like one of the first walls of Kitengela. Then some photographs from Kitengela’s early days alongside a stained reflexology chart, followed by two posters for an exhibition of glass beads from 1995. More (noun) pictures and drawings, old magazine pages, oil drums full of coloured glass, and people working, talking, smiling. It’s rich and layered, a history made of histories and fragments with no edges. But it’s different than Simonet’s past work. Less psychedelic rush, more flaneur-like walk. Soon I realise that Simonet isn’t going to dissolve this world in the same blazing way he has done in the past. That this won’t be the shimmering trip of Waterworks or In Bloom. I know this isn’t Tokyo, but it would be easy for Simonet to melt everything, make Kitengela shimmer and drip in his intoxicating way. It’s what he knows and it’s what we know.
I find Simonet later in the book. It’s gradual at first – a verb here and there – then more frequent. Objects start to vibrate, leak, and trip, until in the last few pages, Kitengela’s kaleidoscopic world and Simonet seem to fuse, crescendo, and break down into some kind of primal matter. Part electrical storm, part blown-out speaker. I page through again – it’s more obvious now. Order to disorder. Noun to verb.
I have a hunch why Simonet made the book this way. Kitengela leading, Simonet following. It’s strangely obvious, but Kitengela has (and is) a story, and stories need telling – not melting. What good would it do to make everything drip and shimmer? What good would it do to make the picture of Nani lying on a sofa under a blanket of dogs drip and shimmer? Little, I think. Likewise, if Simonet had edited the book differently and began with himself (with verbs), the story would be lost. There’s a maturity in this, for Simonet to step back and recognise something very real in a surreal world. I think many artists would shirk such an obvious truth, shy away from beginning, middle and end in search of something new or radical. Simonet hasn’t, and Kitengela is an exceptional book for it. It’s also why Kitengela feels so different from past work. In Bloom was all late nights and blurry hedonism. There wasn’t a story as such, more event. Kitengela is different – it has a story. Simonet tells it in the first half of the book with photographs and photographs of photographs. Endless layers that feel like nouns. In the second half, he starts to think out loud, reflect, and add to the story. History to future joins order to disorder. It sounds simple when I write it like that, but it’s taken me days. I’m not surprised it took Simonet five years.
And maybe the end feels like a blown-out speaker because, after everything, Simonet isn’t sure what’s next for Kitengela. It’s unresolved, frayed, but honest. Certainty to uncertainty joins the pack. I look at the end again and remember Estelle Hoy writing about the French writer, Pierre Guyotat. She talks about his book Coma and how he ends it “sans full-stop and instead a comma – a gesture of continuation”. Simonet has done something similar with Kitengela. Let the end melt and spark because there is no end, leaving it open to be remade yet again as it has been since 1979. A fitting ‘end’.
A week after finishing this, it strikes me that maybe Simonet also didn’t reach for his normal verbs (at least not as many) because Kitengela is already full of them. Make, do, build, undo, remake. Kitengela is more process than anything. Glass is just the cherry on top, colouring the world the same way Simonet’s happy accidents do. It’s as if Simonet has found all his chance and chemistry in a real place. I hope I’m right.