La Galerie Louise
An artist statement, a novella, a confession
2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross
Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors:
Perri Mackenzie
Liz Allen
sound editor:
Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 4th chapter of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
