Shortly after, I was invited to participate in the exhibition with the wild title Painting with a Hammer to Nail the Crotch of Civilization – A Group Show of Wall Works and Tatoo Imagery, that Manuel had curated at Manila Contemporary. I flew to the Philippines, where the Spanish artist Curro Gonzales, who also participated in the exhibition, his wife Carmen and I were accommodated in the gallerist, Valentine Willie’s huge apartment with a housekeeper, private driver and a view over Manila harbor. It was an insanely intense work stay of two weeks, where I met a large number of artists whose work made a big impact on me, and who I have later been able to involve in my curatorial projects. When I landed in Copenhagen again on November 22nd, there were an unimaginable amount of snow everywhere. I was so down with a pneumonia and two subsequent viral infections that I wasn’t back to full strength until the beginning of March 2011.
Soon after, I suggested Marie Kirkegaard to make an exhibition of Manuel’s drawings in her newly opened gallery, which was then called SOD – Space of Drawings. The exhibition opened on Friday September 30th, 2011. Manuel came to Copenhagen before the exhibition opening and stayed for a week. We had two days working on the collaborative paintings in my studio, which were shortly afterwards exhibited in the studio as Shibboleth Exhibition #30, entitled Collaborative Paintings, and a very modest attendees from October 4th to the 24th. Subsequently, Manuel has hd two more solo shows with Marie, one in May 2913 and one in April 2016.
Marie’s gallery re-opened on May 3rd, 2013 – with Manuel’s second solo show with her – in the extended premises under the new name Marie Kirkegaard Gallery, and she is now marking her 10th anniversary with a re-enactment of the joint paintings that Manuel and I painted in 2011 – which in a way is also a kind of odd anniversary in itself.
