Black Mould

And Other Medicine...

Lee Rammelt

Jul 20, 2025

Michael Borremans

In notes I use paintings more often, lately.

I once broke out in tears, sitting in the Expressionist room of the Booijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.

I once fell into the universe, looking at a Jackson Pollock in Venice.

I know people who paint rather well, like Elise Klinkert, and the late Ruven Levav.

"During my depression, the period after my divorce, art also brought me comfort. Certain encounters with paintings seemed to lift me, however briefly, out of my dark thoughts. I remember standing in the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, face to face with The Crucifixion by Francisco de Zurbarán. It was a magnificent crucifixion, insofar as a crucifixion can be called magnificent. The background was ink-black — blacker even than Malevich’s Black Square — making the crucifix leap out at you. The loincloth, on the other hand, was so dazzlingly white it looked as if it had been washed in Biotex at ninety degrees eighty times. And then, suddenly, a deeply sentimental, comforting thought came over me: the world must be good, otherwise it could never have produced someone like Zurbarán. This art was higher than myself, greater than humanity. For a moment, I was truly happy." - Joost Zwagerman

Today I felt like collecting all the paintings I have shared through notes recently.