Sunday, November 18, 2018

Who is Candra Cassini part 2?



We’ve written about this topic before here

In the midst of the chaos that was rca secret 2017 one thing may have passed people by - Candra Cassini did no less that 8, yes 8 cards.  If you don’t believe us see here.

Now we know that for most contributing artists last year they were only sent 2 cards.  Some appear to have done 4, either because they were well known contributors or presumably because they were sent 2 packs in error and decided to generously donate 4 cards.  But no one else did anywhere close to 8.

Indeed in the history of rca secret it has been very rare indeed for an artist to contribute more than 6 cards.  6 cards used to be the maximum sent to any artist - Gehard Richter did 6 in 2009 for example.  There are plenty of other examples.  

There is one example we can recall  of an artist doing more than 6 and that was Richard Wentworth a few years ago, around 2010 from memory.  Of course Wentworth was head of sculpture at the college at the time so that is perhaps not so surprising.  His cards, photographs of tomatoes in odd places, were a delight that year.  

Readers may be able to remember other examples but there certainly aren’t that many.  

The existence of 8 cards last year leads us to suspect even more than Cassini is a “nom de plume” for someone at or close to the college.  It’s noteworthy this year that the college are doing their Hidden RCA exhibitions - is Cassini one of the college’s technical staff?  We know it is someone who has been connected to the college since around 2003 or 2004 who has been able to contribute to rca secret every year since then.

Who knows, it’s a fabulous mystery and one we rather hope will never be revealed.  It’s a glorious sub plot to the wonderful institution that rca secret has become and is one of the many reasons why we love it so much.



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